TRAVAILS OF AN AMATEUR BIRDWATCHER

 A WORDSWORTH  WITH A GOOGLE LENS

           It’s not that the green valley in the backyard of my house with its myriad flowers and birds sprouted overnight or within these two months of lockdown and it’s also not that I had not noticed these offerings of nature earlier; it’s just that this infinite expanse of leisure made possible by this forced, but somehow blessed, isolation of extended lockdowns afforded me a chance to enjoy these bounties of nature to my heart’s content.

I live in a somewhat secluded part of Shimla at the edge of a locality called Nav-bahar from where the reserve forest area starts. I don’t have to walk up to the jungle to enjoy the Wordworthian communion with nature. All these pleasures are close-at-hand for me. I am woken up by the chirping of the little birds in the morning – bulbuls, cuckoos, koel or a parakeet or some warbler. Standing at the balcony on the backside of my house or just sitting at my bedroom window, I can feast on the sight of numerous daisies growing wild in the valley and also see babblers or doves or sparrows bustling in and out of the bushes in search of worms and insects and twittering continuously all the time. Every so often, some exotic or unfamiliar birds are also seen perched on the electric wire or an exposed tree branch emitting loud bubbling songs or simply whistling. It might sound unbelievable but I have sighted more than thirty varieties of birds just sitting at my window during this Covid-19 caused isolation.

Though I enjoyed spotting these fascinating birds daily from my vantage points and photographed them as well with my ordinary camera, but my birding experience was soured by my inability to identify or name these delightful creatures. What should I call the beautiful black-headed squealer with blue-tinged wingtips sitting on the top of the dried tree-trump or the owl-like bird I saw landing on the fence?

    So I sought the help of books. I ransacked my home library and fished out a hitherto untouched “Birds of Kangra” by Jan Willem den Besten. I found it to be an engaging and well-researched book with over 500 photographs with precise description of the birds in Himachal Pradesh and stories from rich local folklore. But, somehow, it failed to serve my purpose. It was a bit exasperating and fruitless to compare my poorly photographed images with the professional ones in the book to identify the birds observed by me.                                          

Then my son turned up with the solution to my predicament –“Use the Google lens, Dad!” Yes, that was the answer. It’s an AI powered app available in nearly all the smart phones. You just have to point it towards an object or its image and it not only identifies it but also gives all detailed information about it. It is best for identifying books, movie posters, monuments and, yes, – the birds and flowers as well.

      Now I point my cell phone camera at the beautiful owl-like creature perching between the bushes or it’s already captured image and press the Google lens icon. It tells me that it is Asian barred owlet which is active during daylight also unlike the commonly known owls. Or that the pale-headed, heavily spotted, beaked bird poking continuously at the stem of Saal tree is the Marhatta woodpecker. And that the countless daisy-like flowers wildly blooming in my valley behind my house, like ‘the daffodils’ of Wordsworth but far less in count, are “the Shasta daisies, the commonly grown flowering perennial plant of family Astercaceae........"  I stop short of the technical jargon.

        And now, my birding experience or appreciation of nature may not be anywhere near that of a Salim Ali or a Wordsworth, but with the help of this modern contraption, I am thoroughly enjoying the blissful world of bewitching birds and flowers around my abode.

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