Bird Podcast with Shoba Narayan

In which we go behind the scenes to see the fascinating aspects of the bird specimen collection of one of America's most well-respected museums.

You really should watch this episode on our Youtube page (Bird Podcast) or our Instagram feed (bird_podcast), but in case you cannot, included here is also the audio only version.

In this episode, Dr. Shultz shows us house finches, parrots, frigatebirds, penguins, condors, munias, whydahs and the many marvelous specimens in the Natural History Museum's collection.

Allison Shultz is the assistant curator of ornithology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. In this fascinating episode, she takes us behind the scenes to show us the vast and varied collection of bird specimens at the museum.

Dr. Shultz , as you see in her website, has loved animals her whole life, and fell in love with birds during her undergraduate at UC Berkeley. She is a native Southern Californian, and loves the diversity of habitats (and birds!) available in a very small geographic area! She credits her artistic eye for first drawing her to studying bird coloration, but now that is one of her main fascinations.

Where she talks about how multiple nations and habitats need to cooperate to help these champion migrants.

In this episode, Dr. Yaara Aharon-Rotman speaks about long distance migration, mainly among shorebirds but also passerines. We have explored migratory shorebirds before in Episode 43. Here, Dr. Rotman talks about how national borders don't apply to migrating birds and how we all need to cooperate to help them along.

Originally from Israel, Yaara has completed her PhD in Deakin University, Australia where she studied long distance migratory shorebirds. Inspired by the long migration of her studied species, she than joined research labs in Israel (to work on migratory passerines), China (where she worked on a vulnerable Asian habitat for migratory geese) and Australia, her current home where she study torpor in local and migratory species as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New England. Her main interest focuses on how animals, mainly migratory species, respond to challenges, and specifically, their physiological adaptation to global changes. If she is not looking for birds in the field or analysing data in her office, you can find her in one of the National Parks around Armidale with her family, or at the boxing ring!

Interview with a filmmaker who won the L'oiel d'or or Golden Eye in Cannes for best documentary film in 2022.

We have a different sort of guest for this episode: a filmmaker. Shaunak Sen's film "All That Breathes" premiered at Sundance Festival, where it won the Grand Jury award and then won the L'Oeil d'Or (Golden Eye) for the best documentary at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. You should really watch this episode in our Youtube Channel, Bird Podacast or our Instagram channel bird_podcast because we are playing clips from the film. In this episode, director Shaunak Sen talks about human-animal relationships, and how the brothers are philosophers who wear their insights lightly.

Questions:

1. Tell us about the film?
2. What made you decide to do this film?
3. Are you a bird lover?
4. Speciestic difference is like jail. What a line. Do you believe that?
5. How did you capture the birds close up? The kites, vultures, etc.
6. The blackwinged stilt on the soapy river. How did you get that?
7. How did it feel to be near the injured kites?
8. In interviews, you have talked about how these brothers have a 'front row' seat of the apocalypse.
9. Why do the brothers do what they do?

About the film

"The documentary talks about two brothers in a lower middle-class Delhi locality, who have made it their life's mission to save kites. These birds, which have been victims of the capital's debilitating air pollution, are rescued by the brothers, Mohammed Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, treated and set free once they are ready to fly again. These two are helped by an employee, Salik Rehman, and all of them have dedicated their lives to this enormously difficult rehabilitation venture.

The work is a quiet effort to document in detail the brothers' patience and sacrifice. Carrying on in the face of punishing impediments, including lack of funds, Saud and Shehzad live in hope with a never-say-die attitude. There is an extremely touching scene when one of them goes to a meat shop and asks for a concession in price. It is not easy feeding kites, which are birds of prey.

It may sound unbelievable but the brothers have been at it for two decades, struggling to get funds at home and from abroad. We learn as we watch the documentary that they feel taking care of kites and helping them to fly again by themselves are rewards. They love feeding the winged creatures, and the way they caress them establishing an undying bond is marvellously narrated by Sen.

He also lets us into some tender moments as when one of the brothers in an autorickshaw takes out a baby squirrel from his shirt pocket, lovingly strokes it and puts it back. Such moments of compassion make the movie a great watch.

The cost of this love is unimaginable; although Shehzad and Saud earn a living by manufacturing liquid-soap dispensers, they are much more interested in tending to kites, some 12 hours in a day, and these come at the cost of neglecting their families. In a telling scene, Shehzad and his wife are ruminating over Delhi's worsening air pollution. While she is thinking about their child, he is fixated on kites!"

Today, he suggested that we talk about avians to the rescue. We are the Bird Podcast after all.

Links:

Wonderful article about Salim Ali written by Bittu Sahgal here.

Wikipedia on Bittu Sahgal

Some thought-provoking images from the Sanctuary Wildlife Photography awards

Sanctuary Nature Foundation

Santuary Asia magazine

Questions:

3:00 How does protecting birds and their habitats help us deal with what you call an existential crisis? He talks about climate change and small interventions. He compares tigers with avians in terms of conservation. "You save the forest. You save the species." Talks about nematodes in the soil, tics on the backs of the tigers, the whole ecosystem.

7:00 It is time that the tigers came down from the pedestal and birds need to go higher on the pedestal.

8:00 Birders as climate warriors. Birds disperse seeds, maintain habitats.

9:30 Economists are realizing that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the biosphere.

10:20: There is an urgency to his mission. Thanks to climate change, the economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. Technology alone cannot help. My loyalty is to the biosphere. It is necessary for us now to go down to the minutiae.

11:40 He talks about Dr. Salim Ali

12:00 Talks about how birds are protectors of the infrastructure.

14:00 What is a magic wand that he would wave to influence. He says that he would try to influence the brain between the two ears of human beings. Nature is a simple economic principle. If you undervalue an asset, you will lose it. The time for fighting is over. Self interest in protecting habitat comes from making sure that we use local communities to protect areas.

16:00 Can you walk us through how things have changed since you began Sanctuary Asia? How things have go sharply downfill. Forests dismembered. Our power as environmental protectors has come down. Biodiversity that you protect gives a chance for the local communities to benefit from tourism.

18:30 How tigers numbers going up is a facade.

18:55 There is no doubt that the biosphere will win this battle. There is no doubt that we will make life difficult for ourselves. The circle of life. Logic is the same as the tiger. Birds occupy vital habitats.

21:00 Last year, you delivered a keynote titled "To protect nature, start at home." Can you elaborate on that for our viewers and listeners? In your instagram posts, you talk about preserving little areas of wilderness within the city. What do you mean? Not golf courses, football fields. If we want the city to be future ready, use one-third of what you have for real wilderness.

22:00 About the common Pipistrelle bat.

23:00 Humayun Abdul Ali. When Indira Gandhi wanted to sent frog's legs to France, Mr. Ali's reply. Send frogs leg but ask them to give us medicines for malaria. Humayun Ali got people to change using logic. Birds are protecting water. Wetlands.

24:15 Favourite spot? He talks about Ranthambore being "home."

25:00 How he loves Dachigam and the Dagwan river. About the peace that comes.

26:00 I don't know whether to celebrate what exists or mourn what is going. Talks about Kaziranga.

27:30 Protecting nature. Start at home. Gandhi quote. The person who does nothing because he cannot do everything is the worst of the lot.

29:00 About his conversation with the Dalai Lama. About monks carrying tiger bones inside their robes. Belinda Wright. Debbie Banks. Exposed this.

32:00 What is the pleasure of birding for you? Human beings are soiling their own homes. The need of the hour is to share your love of nature. Join the BNHS. Birders are going to be the saviors of this subcontinent.

34:00 Are you optimistic about the future? We think we are more clever than we really are. We haven't learned to use our brains. Like a baby elephant. Darwin said, it is the most adaptable that will survive. We haven't learned to adapt. We want the environment to adapt to us.

37:37 He loves spiders. Loves sparrows. He talks about children being his main constituents. Kids for Tigers. The tiger is a metaphor for all of nature. Protect trees, protect all that live in trees. How to protect the powerful from consuming everything that there is in the buffet.

40:30 Haven't been to Ladakh. Talks about his wish to go to Ladakh.

41:25: Message to birders

Formal Bio below:

Bittu Sahgal is an environmental activist, writer and the founder of Sanctuary Nature Foundation, an Indian nonprofit conservation organization that works on environmental policy, advocacy, science, on-ground support and habitat management. He is also the founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, a wildlife and ecology magazine.

Besides the Sanctuary Asia and Cub magazines, Sahgal has published numerous works in both English and regional languages. He has authored coffee table books on wildlife, including a series on some of India's national parks and sanctuaries: The Bandhavgarh Inheritance, The Sundarbans Inheritance, The Bharatpur Inheritance, The Kaziranga Inheritance, The Corbett Inheritance and The Periyar Inheritance and a stand-alone, India Naturally. He also produced 30 wildlife documentaries.

Dr. Heinrich is a professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Vermont and is the author of a number of books about nature writing and biology. Dr. Heinrich has made major contributions to the study of insect physiology and behavior, as well as bird behavior.

Here are some of the books mentioned in this episode.

One Man's Owl

Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death

A Naturalist at Large: The Best Essays of Bernd Heinrich

The Homing Instinct: Meaning & Mystery in Animal Migration

White Feathers: The Nesting Lives of Tree Swallows

Ravens in Winter

Racing the Clock: Running Across a Lifetime

Questions:

1. Can ravens think, and how could you know?
2. Ravens share food. Are they altruistic?
3. Why did you study tree swallows and what did you find out?
4. Experiences with crows.
5. Do ravens have culture? (basically why live with humans or as in New England are hyper-shy)
6. You studied woodpeckers, too. (It was flickers and sapsuckers- not top-notch science but fun!)
7. Your father is famous for his birds and his wasps, too- tell us about that ! (His book. on the Snoring Bird and yours)
8. Owl. You have had quite an experience with a Great horned owl.
9. Your favorite bird aesthetically— woodcock display -turned on since a lid on the farm
10. Golden-crowned kinglets? Fun discoveries/observations.
11. Anything else? Winter mixed-species flocks?

Birds are the stuff of myth and legend in every culture. Some of the most beautiful poetic images come from birds. My father, an English professor, loved the Romantic poets: Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth, who lived in the Yorkshire moors in close proximity to nature and wrote lyrical poems about what they saw. John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," is one of his favorites. I have read the poem, but I don't really understand it. What speaks to me is Maya Angelou's "I know why the caged bird sings."

The eagle is a singular image in Allama Iqbal's poetry. Iqbal reveres the eagle because it proudly disdains eating dead prey or anything other than what it has caught. As Mustansir Mir says in the website, allamaiqbal.com, this description might apply to a hawk rather than an eagle. Iqbal gets a number of bird facts wrong, but as this website points out, the eagle, for him, is a poetic construct.

My favorite Urdu poem is a children's song sung by Nuzhat Abbas: "Bulbul ka bacchha. Khatha tha khichdi." I used to listen to this ad nauseam years ago, and was delighted to discover it on YouTube recently.

Sanskrit literature's most resonant bird image has to do with the Hamsa, which can separate milk and water that are mixed together in a bowl. The Hamsa is used as a reference in poetry for anyone that has the discrimination (or judgement) to simply suck up the milk and leave out the water. Then there was the practice of divination based on the movement of birds that was common to most primitive cultures. When the crows caw, my grandmother used to say, you will have unexpected guests: divining arrivals from the sound of a crow's caw.

As K.N.Dave's magisterial (and sadly, posthumously published) book, "Birds in Sanskrit Literature," says, superstition surrounds the magpie, not only in India, but also in Europe and England. My tangential interest with respect to bird-watching has been to delve into poetry, but it could be something else for another birdwatcher.

This ripple effect is a perk that comes from any deep dive into a hobby or passion; and clearly, I am pushing bird watching as an option.

Everyone says that bird-watching requires patience. I don't think so. I think that the pleasure of bird watching comes from the questions you ask. You can watch a crow and try to figure out why it is cawing at that moment. You can listen to the variety of calls that a common mynah makes and try to see if there is a pattern. I watch the birds come and go in the trees in front of my home and see if there is a reason or pattern that they follow when they sit down and take off. I watch the way the parakeets spread their tail feathers just before landing and see the different shades of green. Most interesting of all are the birds that are sitting still. What are they doing? What are they thinking? Does their call predict something? Is the wind changing? Does that define when they take off and land? Bird watching for me is an engrossing and pleasurable hobby. It gives me great aesthetic joy to watch these most beautiful of God's creations. Then again, I see a butterfly and think it beautiful too. Oh, but there is the dragonfly with its transparent wings; and the honeybee that gives up its life for its colony. All waiting to connect with us.

Ayurveda divides us into three phenotypes: vata, pitta and kapha. Vatas have acute hearing and enjoy the sense of touch— if my memory serves right. Pittas have acute vision and enjoy the sense of smell. Kaphas have acute taste and enjoy the sense of touch. As a classic vata, I have acute hearing, as a result of which I'm very sensitive to the sound of birds. As I write this, I hear three birds: a wagtail, a bulbul, and a parakeet. This can become a curse when I hear the sound of a bird that I cannot identify. I obsess about it and go to an app called "Bird Calls," that is loaded on my phone to try to figure it out.

It has to do with a way of seeing that is cultivable but not necessarily common. If you have it; that's a gift. Some people can see owls just by walking past. The trick to quick identification is observing size and shape, colour patterns, behavior and habitat according to this website. I have still not cultivated this way of seeing yet. Mostly I stare at a tree where the bird-calls emanate from and wait for movement. I cannot drive by birds on telephone poles and quickly identify them. Where I score is with the sound. Once I hear and identify a bird by it call, I never forget it. Even now, I can wake up and listen to the trill of a Kingfisher calling at a distance and know that it is in my neighborhood. I know the rosy starlings who have migrated from Tajikistan by their excited cheep-cheeps; the bulbul, by its sweet piercing whistle that echoes around my building; and the wagtail by its loud call, unusual for a bird so small.

My bird watching happens through the day. Usually, when I'm bored or have nothing to do, I pick up my binoculars and look out. Usually I see something. There was the time when it was raining. I trained my binoculars on a Ficus tree, and found a golden oriole perched on the top. It did the most amazing thing. It circled and went upside down on the branch, almost as if it wanted the rain to wet its underside. It had been a terribly hot day. As I stood in doors and watched the oriole enjoy the water drops, I felt like doing the same. In another branch, a black drongo (Dicurus macrocercus) sat perfectly sit, enduring the rain that was pouring on its black head.

In the beginning, with blind ambition, I decided that I would memorize the Latin names for all the bird species that I saw. I have given up that endeavor now. It is complicated enough to keep track of the markings and learn the common names. This then is the other learning that will occur: spotting minor differences between birds that belong to the same species: white cheeked barbet, gray-headed barbet, coppersmith barbet, blue-throated barbet, you get the picture. They all belong to the Megalaima species.

It doesn't come easy but I struggle at it anyways. Slowly and surely, like a tortoise, I'm climbing up the hill of taxonomy and nature watching.

The best thing that is happened to me as a result of this year-long journey is the cliché: I feel connected with the universe. Let me be clear. I don't think you wake up one morning and suddenly feel at one with the cosmos. It is a gradual process of shedding layers of armor that you have built around yourself.

As I stand in the balcony every morning, gazing through my binoculars, feeling the warmth of the sun on my back and the wind on my skin, watching the dance of birds and the wave of leaves, I sniff the air and smile. This precious, fragile planet that we are privileged to occupy has wondrous beings that are right in front for eyes if only we care to look.

Part 1 of 4. This episode addresses a question that every bird watcher hears at some point or other. People who watch us stand still at balconies gazing skywards or at trees, peering through binoculars at walks, or getting excited by some random tiny green bird. Some of us get this question from puzzled spouses or confused friends and the question in: What are you guys doing?