COIMBATORE: Nature lovers across the nation are celebrating November to commemorate the birth of renowned ornithologist Dr Salim Ali, by trending #BirdNov. The 126th birth anniversary of Dr Salim Ali, popularly called as Birdman of India, fell on November 12. Interestingly, Dr Salim’s birth month coincides with the migration of a large number of winged visitors to the Indian subcontinent.
Social media platforms are flooded by messages about birds and their behaviour, posted by members of the birding community under #BirdNov. Angeline Mano of Salem shares information about birding hot spots in the district, Mahalakshmi of Valparai shares paintings of birds,Vishnu Shankar from Rajapalayam shares images of endemic birds of western ghats, Ritesh Kumar from Ahmedabad shares birds Surreal art in anthropomorphic, V Santharam of Andhra Pradesh shares photo essays of birds and Shilpa Das of Ahamedabad is shares paintings of birds that were found 500 or 100 years ago in their WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram pages.
K Selva Ganesh, a government school teacher in Valparai said, “I have been posting information of the migratory birds in Tamil in WhatsApp status and WhatsApp groups to raise awareness and in the last 15 days I shared details of 15 migratory birds including Indian Pitta and European Roller birds. I will keep posting information about other birds including the Grey Wagtail in the next 15 days.”
S Boopathy, a designer and native of Kumbakonam, said, “This is a decentralised celebration where no one owns #BirdNov and everyone who believes in nature conservation owns the label. Hence there are no rules. Each individual or community can celebrate the festival in their own way. The festival is modelled on two festivals such as inktober - international social media art festival and margazhi - winter appreciation festival.”
Tiruppur based P Jeganathan, coordinator of Tamil Birders Network who shares information about endangered birds, told TNIE “Nice to see so many artists, illustrators and designers getting involved in this campaign. For birdwatchers it is quite normal to think about birds all the time irrespective of which month or year.”
Not just from within the country, birders abroad, like California-based Saswathi Das are creating poems related to birds and Priya Ramanujam of Texas shares photographs of birds in social media.