Birds from a segment of the LoC
Reviewed by Lieut -Gen(Retd) Baljit Singh

Plumage Across The Pir Panjal: A Photographic Guide
by Rajendra Singh, FRGS
Bookmart. Pages 295. Hard Bound Rs 1160 

Though the genre of field guides is not new to ornithology but in India it is barely three decades old. To begin with, they were essentially in the textual format, usually devoting about 500 words to each bird, essential to peg the identity even in a fleeting encounter. The advent of high-resolution imagery of digital cameras, has ushered the era of near fail-safe, species identification under rigorous field conditions. The first of this genre in India was A Photographic Guide to the Birds of India, by Bikram Grewal, Bill Harvey and Otto Pfister, published in 2002. Because of the true-to-life colours and physical contours of birds in the images captured, they were able to restrict the text to about 100 words only, without compromising on the purpose of the book. The latest to exploit this trend is Brigadier Rajendra Singh, on the sidelines of his demanding duties on the General Staff of Corps, in Jammu and Kashmir. In a compact sized photo guide, he illustrates identities of 260 species of birds of the Rajouri and Poonch Districts, and of another 47 bird-species from immediate neighbourhoods.

Some photographs, such as those of the mountain hawk-eagle, the Eurasian wryneck, the rufous-backed long-tailed shrike, the white-capped river-chat and the red-billed leothrinx (book cover) are hard to put aside. Many images are of average grade nevertheless, they amply achieve the “guide” purpose. The captions to photographs are in the casual, spoken language mode (sans scientific jargon), seldom in excess of 20 words but sufficiently indicative of where the species may be encountered. Also given is its summer/winter altitudinal distribution and differences in plumage between genders, where relevant.

The book is also illustrative of the versatility of “auto-focus, point and shoot” digital cameras, especially on “burst” mode — a great boon both for bird-watching enthusiasts and scientists to unravel those aspects of bird behaviour, hitherto not fully understood. This factor is magnificently illustrated in the image of the white-crested kaleej pheasant (cock-bird), caught in the crowing stance where in the effort of bellowing his call, deep down from the pit of his belly as it were, the bird is caught stretched upwards to the limit, almost balancing on his toes, as it were! Also noticeable are strands of the infamous barbed wire along the international boundary in the Poonch sector, with all ingredients for another border dispute of “whose bird is it, anyway?”

It is a happy coincidence that birds of the entire J&K region should have been comprehensibly documented through photo-imagery, suddenly in the last 10 years. To start with, JW Besten published in 2004 a photographic guide of Birds of Kangra, Otto Pfister followed with Birds & Mammals of Ladakh, also in 2004, four years later (2010) Lieutenant Colonel Rohit Gupta published Birds of Baramula and now with the release of Plumage Across The Pir Panjal, bird identities of the entire J&K State are fully illustrated.

The book is illustrative of the versatility of “auto-focus, point and shoot” digital cameras, specially on ‘burst’ mode — a boon for birdwatchers.

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