Bird Podcast with Shoba Narayan

With us today is Dr. Samira Agnihotri , who has studied bird song, racket-tailed drongos and ethno-ornithology.   Dr. Agnihotri has worked in the Biligiri Rangana Betta or BR Hills from 2005 when she began to study birdsong while pursuing a Master's degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from the National Centre for Biological Sciences. She then studied racket-tailed drongos, walking through...

Our guest today is Dr. Nancy Jacobs, a professor of history at Brown University.  The topic of our discussion is based on her third book, a really wonderful read.  It is called Birders of Africa: history of a network.  He current work is on the "Global Grey Parrot. " Nancy Jacobs is Professor of History at Brown University. She specializes in South Africa, colonial Africa, the environment, knowled...

This episode features two senior conservation specialists from Audubon: Aurelio Ramos and Gloria Lentijo. They talk about Audubon's new strategies in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada. This hemispheric approach stems from the recognition that the majority of vulnerable bird species found in the U.S. spend most of their lives in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean, which have some of th...

Dr. Aparajita Datta leads The Nature Conservation Foundation's Eastern Himalaya programme, under which research and community-based conservation with hornbills as a flagship have been carried out for over two decades. She completed her PhD on hornbill biology and their role in seed dispersal in 2000. Since then, she along with her team have worked all over the North East on a variety of hornbill-r...

Is there a link between birds and 007?  Well, author and American birder, Jim Wright says there is.  The title of his latest book says it all.   "The Real James Bond: A True Story of Identity Theft, Avian Intrigue and Ian Fleming." The book says, "Long before Ian Lancaster Fleming became a bestselling author, a single-minded Philadelphia ornithologist named James Bond wrote Birds of the West Indie...

Jonathan Franzen  is arguably America's greatest living fiction writer. He has won numerous accolades and awards.  His latest book,  Crossroads , is just out. Like many of his novels, it has little to do with his other passion. As Jonathan says in this interview, he doesn't bird very much when he is working. Now to birding.  In his New Yorker essay,  "My Bird Problem,"  Franzen says that he began...

Life on Earth is undergoing its sixth ever mass extinction, one that is entirely driven by humans. Amongst the multitude of "global change" factors causing species' extinctions, climate change and the loss and degradation of natural habitats are major causes. This is especially the case for species in tropical mountain ranges, where most of Earth's terrestrial biodiversity is concentrated, and whe...

Dr. Seshadri KS grew up in Bangalore and started to watch birds at a young age. An avid naturalist with interests across many taxa, he has chosen to study natural history, ecology and conservation biology as a career. He was part of the team that described three new species of frogs from India and described a new behavior in frogs. Dr. Seshadri is currently a DST-INSPIRE Faculty Fellow at the Cent...

Our guest in this episode is Dr. Emily Duval whose Duval lab at Florida State University studies behavioral ecology, population genetics, and in the role of sexual selection in speciation. In this episode, we talk to this much feted, and  much-cited  professor about topics that would be a divorce lawyer's nightmare: multiple paternity, non-optimal choice of mate, alpha and beta males, and the adap...

This episode features Josep Del Hoyo, one of the founders as well as the director of Lynx Edicions and an expert videographer of birds.  This episode is a wide-ranging conversation about birds in different parts of the world.   Josep is an Editor of the 17-volume Handbook of the Birds of the World series (1992–2013) and an Author of the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the B...

Every good city needs a generous birding guide, one who is empathetic and loves to explore nature around her. If this intrepid explorer is empathetic, generous and inclusive, that's even better.  Deepa Mohan  is one such wildlife enthusiast and explorer in Bangalore, India. In this podcast, we discuss the many aspects of Deepa's birding all over India, about how to count birds, about going to the...

  This episode is about striated caracaras, or rather, one man's obsession with them.  The man in question is Jonathan Meiburg who is a musician, author and bird lover.  In 1833, a young Charles Darwin was astonished by a strange animal he met in the Falkland Islands: a handsome, social, and oddly crow-like falcon that was "tame and inquisitive," "quarrelsome and passionate," and so insatiably cur...

Visit the home of Shubha Bhat and you will find many birds enjoying birdbaths in her garden and its surroundings. An avid birder, Shubha has spoken about backyard birding in many forums including the Bangalore Bird Day , Manipal Bird Day and others. Her work has been videotaped and photographed in many publications, including Bird Count India . Today we talk about how to make your gardens and balc...

JN Prasad has been a keen naturalist and birdwatcher for the last 4 decades. Associated closely with the WWF-India Nature Clubs of India movement since its inception, he went on to co-found Merlin Nature Club, which became the cradle of learning for many of Bangalore's most enthusiastic naturalists. A post-graduate in International Marketing and also in Ecology and Environment, he has over 50 pape...

Do you want to become a reviewer for ebird? Which bird is the logo of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology? Do you think sparrow populations are declining? What abour vireos? Can you "rent" land from farmers to help shorebirds?  In this fascinating episode, we talk to Christopher Wood, who heads ebird at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Ashwin Viswanathan who is part of Bird Count India and NCF. Over...

To research books, films and articles, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica, worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba and handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana. She has been deftly undressed by an orangutan in Borneo, hunted by a tiger in India, and swum with piranhas, electric eels and dolphins in the Am...

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[et_pb_section admin_label="section"] [et_pb_row admin_label="row"] [et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text"] "To be able to conserve and protect, you have to observe and love," says philanthropist Rohini Nilekani. "Being in nature, you get this sense of continuing renewing wonder," she says. In this episode, Rohini talks about her favourite birds and why conserving nature is an "en...

Maitreya Sukumar, 18, who has been birding since he was 4, has seen 850 + bird species in the Indian subcontinent and around 2500 species overall . He was named Sanctuary Asia's Young Naturalist of the year in 2018. Apart from birds, he is interested in frogs, conservation and evolutionary biology. Here is a video of Maitreya winning the Sanctuary Young Naturalist Award 2018. Here are some books h...

Dr. Krishna MB is an ecologist and ornithologist from Bangalore who has been interested in bird and habitat conservation and improvement. A legend in the Bangalore birding community, he has studied zoology and pursued his research on bird ecology. Krishna is a regular fixture at birding walks at the Lalbagh Botanical Garden and is a wealth of knowledge on ecology and bird identification. He has ad...

In December 2019, Dr. Dominique Homberger visited Bangalore after a gap of ten years.  She gave a talk at NCBS (National Centre for Biological Sciences). When we reached out to her, she immediately agreed to speak to us.  Are you interested in how parrot species and their beaks evolved? How do parrots eat? What is the link between the length of parrot beaks and what they eat-- fruits versus nuts?...

Click here to download A few years ago, I cold-emailed Jairam Ramesh, then minister of rural development, with one question: how could urban individuals contribute to rural India? He called me from Gumla, Jharkand. "Do you know where Gumla is?" he asked. Sheepishly, I said No. After some small talk—his mother lives in Bangalore— I asked how the average urban citizen could help rural India, should...

Click here to download Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science and nature for 30 years. Her most recent book, The Genius of Birds (Penguin Press, April 2016), explores the intelligence of birds.   Her previous books include Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold(Twelve Press, 2010), Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body(Houghton Mifflin, 2007), Chance in the Ho...

Click here to download Dr. Jerry Jackson is a legend in ornithology, for his life-long fascination with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I met him on a windy even in Lakes Park, Fort Myers for a chat about the birds of Southwest Florida. Interview with Dr. Jerome Jackson , a noted ornithologist based in Florida.  And we are talking about Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, Florida.  Located in the...

The Keoladeo Ghana National Park is arguably India's most famous national park for birds.  This episode offers you a bird's eye view of the park.