Indian Birds

"Almost all existing books on Indian birds are either bulky ornithological treatises or small handbooks and field guides with descriptions and notes which rely heavily on line drawings or colour sketches for illustration. Many of these are reprints of the works of old naturalists, originally written at least a half century ago. There are only a couple of recent books that have been illustrated with photographs, but these are dedicated to particular habitats or areas.

"Over the past decade or so, nature photography has taken great strides and several Indian photo-naturalists have produced work of high quality. This is no mean achievement, especially when viewed in the light of the fact that unlike their foreign counterparts, most Indian photo-naturalists work in the face of severe constraints of equipment and ancillary support and without any institutional or financial backing. Nevertheless, there is now much greater scope for illustrating natural history publications--more accurately and with more life than ever before, using photographs.

"The book we are presenting is just one such step in this direction. It is primarily a portfolio of bird pictures, selected from the work of a dedicated photo-naturalist, Lt Gen R K Gaur, PVSM (Retd). Gen Gaur's main passion is to observe and document birds as birds, living creatures rather than sets of biological and statistical data. The author has largely avoided repeating basic data and figures about anatomy, measurements, and other biological details that can be obtained from any handbook or compendium. His light and eminently readable narrative takes the reader into the fascinating realm of bird life. Yet, his writing clearly reflects a naturalist's concern, based on years of painstaking observation." (jacket)