Thaindian News

By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar
Panaji, Aug 26 (IANS) Now it won’t take a sweaty, tiring, mosquito-bitten stakeout in the Western Ghats forests to hear the song of birds like the Drongo Cuckoo, the Pompadour Green Pigeon or the Grey-headed Bulbul.

After 10 years of jungle treks, enduring countless mosquito bites and tracking down the wide range of birds in the 60,000 sq km tropical hotspot, ornithologist Sharad Dutt Apte has “burned” the sounds of nearly 240 birds, some commonly found, some rare, in an audio-visual documentary titled ‘Birds of the Western Ghats’.

In his own words Apte, who hails from Sangli, in Maharashtra, describes himself as “ornithologist who has recorded these calls with sophisticated equipments tramping through forests, mountains, rivers and lakes across the Western Ghats”.

“I have spent 20 years of my leisure time and resources studying birds and bird songs. The latter 10 years I spent recording their sounds,” Apte told IANS in an email interview. The documentary was released last month.

“Bird songs and calls are roughly classified by their purpose i.e. breeding songs and calls, alarm calls, rising and retiring call as well as calls for communications,” Apte said.

He is a firm believer that melodious bird songs are a “superb means of awakening the masses to the cause of environment conservation”.

“It is an intrinsic sound of nature. Bird songs, strengthen the bond of love and respect for Mother nature,” Apte said. He should know.

For nearly a decade now, the French-bearded ornithologist has been traipsing around the rugged Western Ghats region in his khakis, a haversack and a strange contraption that looks like a mobile satellite dish. “It’s a microphone, which has a reflector dish that enhances the bird sounds and gives us a better audio,” Apte said, adding that bird songs vary with situations and the hour of the day.

“Take for example the koel’s song. On one hand the call allures the female and on the other, it warns opponent males against entering the singer’s territory,” the ornithologist said. Apte claims that bird sounds in ancient India also inspired the generations of yore.

“Legend has it that a Saras crane’s call of grief after the loss of his partner inspired Maharishi Valmiki to compose his epic Ramayana,” Apte said. “Even today, thousands of spoken languages across the country are dotted with such folklores and songs,” he said.

The exhaustive collection, also available on CD, contains general information about the 240 bird species from the Western Ghats.

(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in)