The World of Birds

Commended Entry: "The World of Birds" by Anurag Debsarkar from India

This article was submitted in the Kids World Travel Guide Essay Competition 2023 in the Junior Category 8 - 11 years.

The World of Birds

I wake up every morning to the beautiful sound of my dear birds chirping at my window sill and in the garden. I open the window and give them puffed rice, bengal grams and chips. The crows, doves, mynas, babblers, bulbuls and chipmunks greet me every morning before I set off for my school. I love my little visitors and they love me.

In my theatre class, I once played the role of a tragopan from Vikram Seth’s eco-poem "The Elephant and the Tragopan". The red-breasted Tragopan protested with all the fellow creatures of Bingle Valley, when man hatched a crazy scheme "to mar their land and dam their stream." The good-natured Tragopan was martyred finally. My heart melted for the martyr bird. I also feel sad when I see chickens groaning and dying in the bazaar.

For my love of birds, I once visited the Zoological Survey of India in my hometown, Kolkata. The scientist uncles of ZSI gave me a very exciting book, a field guide of the 'Birds of India'. It opened to me the massive world of Indian birds and piqued my curiosity about the endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, situated between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, are one of the major Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs) of the world. There are many Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks in these islands. The Andaman Wood Pigeon is the state bird of this archipelago. They are a wild species of birds belonging to the family of doves and pigeons, Columbidae. They don’t migrate; they are the resident birds of these islands. Fruits, berries and figs are their favourite food. They have deep grey upperparts and light grey underparts, reddish bare skin around the eye and silvery neck. Their bill is pinkish red with a yellowish anterior end. As these shy birds live in the trees of the dense forests, they are rarely sighted, but they have a distinctive hooting call. Sadly, their numbers are declining due to hunting and logging in the dense forests and they are enlisted as Near Threatened species.

Due to the long isolation of these islands from the mainland, most of the species of these islands are endemic. A few other endemic species of these islands are – Andaman Barn Owl, Andaman Coucal, Nicobar Pigeon, Nicobar Megapode and Narcondam Hornbill. These birds aren’t found anywhere else in the world, so we must protect them. If the forests of these islands get destroyed, they’ll be wiped out from the world. The A&N Environment and Forest Department, ZSI, BNHS, SACON and many others have joined hands for conservation of the forests and the endemic species of these islands.

When I’ll grow up, I’ll become an Ornithologist like Dr. Salim Ali, the beloved ‘Birdman of India’. I will make all efforts to save my dearest feathered friends, the birds.

Congratulations on your essay "The World of Birds", Anurag! This is a lovely essay about your favorite birds! Thank you for sharing your passion with us!

Anurag Debsarkar attends Welland Gouldsmith School in Kolkata/ India. English as First Language. Other Home language is Bengali