The Light Bulb Moment That Made Me A Birder

Birding is a joy in any form whether we are watching them, photographing them, writing about them or doing illustrations of them.

Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

The light bulb came on in 2011.

I was reading about the Vedapatti water body in Coimbatore, and suddenly had a desire to visit the place. I had not felt this way before in the preceding 14 years of my life in Coimbatore.

The following day I made a trip to the place and took in the serene surroundings, watched some birds on the many trees and in the water. A man with a camera approached me and asked if I was interested in bird watching and I promptly said ‘yes’! And, so began my birding journey.

Also Read: Winters Are Incomplete Without Birdwatching!

My childhood youth was spent in Bombay (now Mumbai) in Anushaktinagar, the residential campus of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. The campus is beautiful, full of trees, wide open spaces, very few buildings and a range of hills that kept us protected from the nuclear reactor complex.

Every monsoon, the place became greener and we had our own ‘Jog Falls’ where we would all converge and have a gala time.

My childhood youth was spent in Bombay (now Mumbai) in Anushaktinagar, the residential campus of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

Surrounded by so much flora, there must have been a lot of birds. But all I saw and registered were the house sparrow, the common mynah, the rock pigeon, the house crow and the jungle crow.

I learnt in 2016 that more than 100 species of birds were spotted at the campus there.

But ever since the light bulb came on, I now see birds everywhere. In my neighbourhood, at my workplace, in parks, playgrounds, and elsewhere.

Not only birds, but butterflies, moths, insects, lizards, snakes, flowers, plants, trees… the list is endless.

Now I can’t have enough books, podcasts, documentaries and reports on birds and birdsong and I take immense pleasure in the fact that I can identify so many of them now.

I learnt in 2016 that more than 100 species of birds were spotted at the campus there.

I have also learnt that it is MY responsibility to protect nature that gives me so much pleasure. I am a part of the Perur Lake Forum which has been doing a bird count in the lake for the last nine years, and we have written and published a paper about the bird population there.

Birding is a joy in any form whether we are watching them, photographing them, writing about them or doing illustrations of them.

Also Read: State of India’s Birds 2023: Birds of Prey, Migratory Shorebirds & Ducks Have Declined The Most

Salim Ali, M. Krishnan, Theodore Bhaskaran, Issac Kehimkar, Dr. Shuba Lakshmi and more recently Prerna Singh Bindra and Rohan Chakravarthy have given us immense pleasure through their work.

What is unique about them is that they all stood up for the environment.