[Field Guide To Indian Birds Pdf Download
Gifford Brickley
I know they say you should never judge a book by its cover, but when I first opened the box and saw Birds of India: Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and The Maldives (Second Edition), my initial reaction was wow. The shiny black cover with the stunning Indian Pitta makes this one of the most attractive field guide covers I have seen. As I began to flip through the 528 pages, I realized that my initial reaction was not far off. The 226 plates depict 1,375 species that occur in this subcontinental region with wonderful illustrations.
Each two-page spread contains information on 3 to 7 species and includes excellent illustrations, range maps, and detailed information on field marks, habitat, behaviors, and voice for each species. The illustrations are truly stunning. The artists have perfectly captured the posture, behavior, and field marks of these birds. While some field guides make the birds look cartoon-like or unreal, the illustrations in Birds of India stand out as being very good representations of the actual wild birds.
Throughout the book, I did notice a few places where the illustrations seemed a little dark or too light. For example, on the pages depicting the swifts, the images are all a bit fuzzy, which can be distracting when looking for identifying characteristics. Nevertheless, the majority of the plates in this book are outstanding. The range maps for every species are incredibly detailed with numerous colors and markings. Too many perhaps. The key at the beginning of the book shows 17 different colors and symbols used on the range maps, which is way more than I am used to in any guide I commonly use. I was forced to keep flipping back to this page due to the complexity of the maps. Even though they are a bit complex, if you are willing to learn what the colors and symbols represent, these maps become excellent resources for understanding occurrence and movement of the birds of India.
Even with a few distractions and flaws in this book, this guide ranks among the best bird field guides I have ever seen. The size (5.5 inches x 8.5 inches) is small enough to carry around in a backpack without taking up too much space. The wonderful illustrations and text are added bonuses, making this guide easy to use and generally exciting to read. If I were to take a trip to India, this would be the field guide that I would use. If you are going to be watching birds on the Indian subcontinent or even if you just enjoy excellent field guides, I strongly recommend adding Birds of India to your library.
In the second part of the Getting Started series, we had looked at what all one needs to get started with birding. As an extension, here are a few resources that will come in handy for birders of all ages and levels of experience.
These days, birders of all ages have a pool of resources about our birds that they can pick and choose from. These include a range of field guides (available both in print and digital form), mobile apps, online journals, websites and databases, social media, and more. Here are a few resources that birders can use to learn more about Indian birds and sharpen their bird knowledge in general.
Caveat: Before buying a field guide, use one and see what feels easiest for you to navigate through. Things such as style of writing, range maps and colours, index layout, etc can be very important when using a guide in the field.
There are several regional guides (some in non-English languages) and some photographic guides (which use photographs instead of illustrations) well. Neither is covered here, but do consider them too.
If you wish to have a field guide on your phone, then the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent might be the perfect option for you. It is essentially the e-book form of the popular Grimskipp guide but adds some useful features such as those to compare species directly and the ability to listen to bird calls.
There are a number of online databases that host images and sounds of various birds. For India and the oriental region at large, few image databases are as reliable as Oriental Bird Images (or OBI). Covering almost all species of the region, this database includes images from a number of photographers across the region who submit their images either directly or through the Oriental Bird Club mailing list.
The Internet Bird Collection (or IBC) is another popular database that archives a large number of bird images, video and sounds. Accessing and contributing to the database is free as long as one has an account (creating one is also free!).
The Macaulay Library is also a large archive of bird sounds and images, as well as some videos. Access is free for anyone and contribution to the archive is made easy using eBird (more about that below).
eBird is an impressive bird database. It is essentially a platform where a birder can upload his or her observations along with media and watch it all come together to offer a plethora of information.
Under the Explore tab on eBird, one can see various options including checklists for regions, birding hotspots, images and audio, as well as species maps, seasonality and other species information. The database itself is free and an incredibly powerful resource for a birder when combined with a field guide.
Indian BIRDS journal is a bimonthly journal that publishes articles on the ecology, behaviour and taxonomy of South Asian birds, as well as reports of ornithological significance. It is available online and is free to download.
Some valuable books and writings written by early, often pioneering, birdwatchers and ornithologists are available to view and download on the Internet Archive and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Here, one can access the works of Hugh Whistler, Salim Ali, TC Jerdon, Douglas Dewar, and others.
Bird Count India supports listing and monitoring of birds in India: from individuals maintaining their bird lists, to groups of students or birders monitoring local birds, to large India-wide projects to document the abundance and distribution of species. We encourage birders to use the free record-keeping tools provided by eBird.
This book is a revised edition of a pictorial guide to the birds of the Indian subcontinent first published in 1983. The book deals with the birds of the Indian Subcontinent - India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, including the islands of Andaman and Nicobars, Lakshadweep, and Maldives and not includes Afghanistan and the Chagos Archipelago. The main part of the book is taken up by bird topography and complemented by 112 plates containing illustrations of 1251 species to describe how their family/species perceived in the society.
Additional notes of over 100 definite species are also provided to add special flavour to the reader. The Guide contains species descriptions to aid field identification, as there are quite a few bird species where a pictorial representation is not sufficient, especially to identify similar looking birds. The brief descriptions of the species have been added to enable quick identification, except for species where more detailing is required.
J.C. Daniel, Director of BNHS from 1960-91 and currently the Vice President of the Society. Author of a number of books and most well-known for The Book of Indian Reptiles and Amphibians (2001). Has also revised Slim Ali The Book of Indian Birds in 1996.
Ranthambhore is a 400-square-kilometer park situated in an area of rocky hill country, clothed in dry, deciduous forest, grassland and scrub, and dotted with several small lakes that can be alive with birds. Seeing Tiger will be a priority, of course, but Ranthambhore also boasts an exciting array of birds, and on our travels around the sanctuary and in surrounding areas we'll be looking for such species as Jungle Bush-Quail, Painted Spurfowl, Painted Sandgrouse, Great Thick-knee, Crested Serpent-Eagle, Spotted Owlet, Plum-headed Parakeets, Rufous Treepie, Ashy-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Gray-headed Canary-Flycatcher, and White-capped Bunting.
Client comment
"A great tour experience, saw more birds than I thought I would, saw Tiger and Sloth Bears, and was impressed with the visit to the Taj Mahal... I had enjoyed traveling with Terry Stevenson and chose this tour because he was the guide. I'll absolutely travel with Terry again, and I was very impressed with Tom Johnson's detailed knowledge about the birds' taxonomy, and I look forward to traveling with Tom another day as well." D.M., NORTHERN INDIA 2019
The best field guide to the birds of the Indian subcontinent is now even better. Thoroughly revised, with 73 new plates and many others updated or repainted, the second edition of Birds of India now features all maps and text opposite the plates for quicker and easier reference. Newly identified species have been added, the text has been extensively revised, and all the maps are new. Comprehensive and definitive, this is the indispensable guide for anyone birding in this part of the world.
Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide (Volume 1: Field Guide and Volume 2: Morphology, Distribution, Vocalizations, and Taxonomy) 2nd Edition (Rasmussen and Anderson, 2012). This two-volume set covers Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and west Myanmar, plus the Andaman Islands. This much-hailed work is extremely detailed and includes superb plates in the first volume and a huge amount of text in the second volume. The first volume is really the field guide, while the second volume is filled with detailed species accounts, now including sonograms. Fully revised and updated from the first edition, with many new taxonomic updates, plus the cover is now a durable soft cover rather than the old hardbound book.
Birds of Pakistan (Grimmett, Roberts, and Inskipp, 2009). This is the subset book for Pakistan of the larger Indian subcontinent guide and follows along with the same style as the above books. Useful for anyone interested in visiting the country when it is safe to do so.
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