Bird Tales from the Himalayas

About this book

Sanjay Sondhi’s Doon Watch column in Hindustan Times, spanning about 500 weekly articles, set high standards on what nature reporting could mean, somewhat in the tradition of naturalist and writer M. Krishnan. This book builds partly on that series, and on the author’s innumerable travels through the western and eastern Himalayas. The book has 50 entries, each dedicated to a bird species or in some cases, a group of closely related species. The descriptions are a mix of facts regarding their status, range, behaviour, and so on; meanings of their local and scientific names; tales from communities or from ancient traditions (many collected from friends and nature guides, whom the author acknowledges); and anecdotes from Sondhi’s birding forays. Since the scientific facts are easily found in many other books and on the internet, it is the folk tales and cultural associations, and his own encounters with these birds, that make this volume especially interesting and lively. The engaging text is taken to a new height by Anusha Menon’s wonderful colour illustrations. This young artist from Pune illustrated one of my children’s books a few years ago, and I can see that her skills, already quite evident then, are even more well-honed now. There is accuracy in the depiction of each species, but excitingly, the illustrations also manage to depict the anecdotes or folk tales that Sondhi has described. Remarkably, she made them without going out to these regions; as she says: “I did the illustrations remotely from Pune, referring to the brilliant photographs Sanjay provided me with.” It is relevant also to mention here that the author deliberately chose to go with illustrations instead of photographs, and that works very well to bring out the combination of anecdote, folk tale and fact.

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