Shubha Bhat will never forget the rare Kashmir flycatcher she spotted in her garden ten years ago: October 2013, to be precise. It was noon, remembers Shubha, who was cooking in her kitchen when she saw numerous birds descend onto the bird baths in her garden. “So, I left that and started clicking videos and pictures,” she says.
Then she noticed the flycatcher, one among many other birds in the garden, cooling himself off. She had seen two species of flycatchers — the red-breasted and Taiga flycatcher — all with the vibrant vermillion, white and grey colouring distinctive to males of the species. “But this looked different because he was opening its tail like a fan,” says Shubha, who remembers being so busy observing the bird that she let the doorbell ring unanswered.
MW Thrush | Photo Credit: Shubha Bhat
She took a video of the bird and sent it to the well-known ornithologist, Dr. S. Subramanya, popularly known as Subbu in birding circles, a friend and mentor. “He told me that it was the Kashmir flycatcher,” she says, adding that the little bird, which lives and breeds in the northwest Himalayas, migrates down south in winter, with sightings mainly in Kerala and Sri Lanka. “It must have come as a passage migrant,” says Shubha, who had never seen the bird before or since. “It was the first sighting in Karnataka.“
F Wagtail | Photo Credit: Shubha Bhat
Connecting birds and water
Not surprisingly, a photograph of this vivid little bird has made its way into Shubha’s book titled Pakshi Jala, which, as the name suggests, documents the relationship between birds and water, specifically on the Indian Institute of Science campus. “I am always wandering around campus, watching everything from plants and leaves to insects and birds,” she admits with a laugh.
Shikra. | Photo Credit: Shubha Bhat
The book, an IISc Press production, not only lists the history and birding hotspots on the campus but also lists the 202 birds spotted on the campus and chronicles Shubha’s birdbath initiative, which led to her observing and photographing almost all of these birds. The pictures of the birds, with some behavioural and call details and the stories behind all these photographs, form the bulk of this book. “It became clear to me that I should highlight the connection between bird and water, and this book has a special focus on that connection,” she writes in the preface of this 350-odd-page book.
According to her, the word Jala has many meanings, depending on the language and how it is pronounced. It could mean water, web, or even magic, all of which was connected to what had been unfurling in her backyard. Once she started keeping water, she discovered an entire ecosystem in her garden, with bees, insects, squirrels, cats, dogs, and, of course, birds veering towards this precious liquid. “Water connects everything,” she says.
V flycatcher | Photo Credit: Shubha Bhat
In love with natural world
Shubha grew up in the remote village of Mala, located in the Karkala taluk of Karnataka’s Udipi, very close to the Kudremukh ghat. She remembers it to be an idyllic, if somewhat isolated, existence; until the Kudremukh mines were established in 1976, there were barely any roads and no electricity, she says. “But we never had any complaint because we enjoyed our lives a lot.”
During those early years, much of her life was spent outdoors, whether it was through the classes conducted outdoors at school or the chores at home and in the fields. “We would go to the forest, do all sorts of jobs, and wander there for hours,” says Shubha, who would often spend time with the people who helped with the harvesting in her village. “They had a very good knowledge about everything in the forest — the trees, insects, snakes and birds,” she says.
It was there that her lifelong obsession with nature was forged, something she carried with her even after she married and moved out of her hometown, travelling with her husband, IISc professor Navakanta Bhat, to Austin, Texas, and later back to Bengaluru.
“We were outside campus for 1.5 to 2 years,” she remembers, with a shudder, a time spent in the city’s concrete jungle, cut off from her beloved natural world. “I managed by watching National Geographic and Discovery,” she confesses. In 2001 or so, she moved to the densely wooded IISc campus, a move that she heartily welcomed. She spent the next two-odd decades roaming across every corner of the campus, observing everything alive in it, a practice she continues to this day. “I am happy just going around campus and watching birds,” she says.
Tailorbird on Wetleaf | Photo Credit: Shubha Bhat
The beginning of bird bath
In 2008, Shubha moved from a small community residence to a larger house with a small garden. That was when she thought of placing birdbaths in this space; she felt bad for the fauna on campus that did not have access to taps and streams, she says.
“I took a vessel which I have bought for my cooking, and I start keeping it,” she says. The birds slowly began trickling in — first crows and mynahs, then other large birds like doves. “But the little ones weren’t coming,” remembers Shubha, who then added a plate filled with water to her garden, which brought in the bulbuls and the tits. “I learnt what would work and not work by observing from my kitchen window,” she says.
She began documenting the birds visiting her baths by 2009, continuing to improvise and expand her setup. Over time, she added more baths, including large cement and hanging ones, placed a twig in the middle of some of them for smaller birds to perch onto and introduced fish like mollies, koi, guppies and goldfish into the larger water receptacles to prevent mosquito infestation.
“I have videos of kingfishers diving into the pond to catch fish,” says Shubha, who would photograph or take videos of the various birds and send them to various ornithologists for identification. She also referred to books like Salim Ali’s The Book of Indian Birds and Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Richard Grimmett, Carol Inskipp & Tim Inskipp. “It is still calls and books for me,” she says, adding that though she has tried using the bird identifying app, Merlin, she prefers these old-fashioned identification methods.
Tit at hanging birdbath. | Photo Credit: Shubha Bhat
Putting it all together
A sudden, raucous screech interrupts the early evening calm, followed by another and yet one more in quick succession. “Rose-ringed parakeets. They are going back to a tree in Orion Mall. They roost there,” she says, without hesitation, having learnt to identify many birds by their calls over the years; she is currently helping with a bird call project at IISc’s Centre for Ecological Sciences.
While she genuinely enjoyed observing and documenting all these birds, she had no plans to write a book, she admits. It was the encouragement of several people from the science fraternity, including Dr Subbu, Shyamal, Ramit Singal, Mike Prince, and Prof. D.D. Sharma, among others, that drove her to do so. “I was not convinced because I felt that I had no knowledge about birds,” says Shubha, who is entirely self-taught. “But many started insisting that I do it,” she says.
Shubha Bhat, wildlife photographer
It took her over five years to put together this book, which was released on August 30 this year. “The narration in this book strives to bring out the innumerable possibilities and improvisations around birdbaths,” she writes in the preface of this book, pointing out that her own 200 sq.ft. home garden itself had managed to host over 60 birds. “A small pot of water in a home garden, or even in balconies of buildings, goes a long way to quench the thirst of several birds. If there is one objective I have in mind for this book, it is to convince every reader of this book to set up a birdbath in their homes and workplaces.”
Pakshi Jala and other books published by IISc Press can be purchased at the Office of Communications or at the Campus Book Store (formerly Tata Book House) at IISc. You can also purchase it online by emailing office.ooc@iisc.ac.in
