This must-read series by Wildlife Trust of India features 10 eminent wildlife experts who share their list of top 20 wildlife titles. This time we have Tara Gandhi, an author, an ornithologist and one among WTI’s founders.

Tara Gandhi specialised in Field Ornithology, guided by the renowned ‘Birdman of India’ Dr Sálim Ali, with a Fellowship from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). Since then, over the past 35 years she has worked for biodiversity conservation programmes with many national and international organisations, including National Biodiversity Authority, WWF India and the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.

She conducted surveys of the fauna of protected areas all over India including in the islands of Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep. Her documentation of urban biodiversity has first-time faunal records.

A founder and life Trustee of WTI, Tara Gandhi serves on committees of the BNHS, Madras Naturalists’ Society (MNS) and the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M). She is the author of books, scientific and popular articles on birds, wildlife and ecology. Her last book Birds, Wild Animals and Agriculture-conflict and coexistence in India is on human-wildlife relations. She is the editor of a two-volume collection of Sálim Ali’s shorter writings A Bird’s Eye View, and his radio talks Words for Birds.

We asked Ms. Gandhi to list the top 20 bird books she would recommend for anyone interested. Here’s her list of top 10 titles about birds in India and another 10 on global topics.

Her pick of the top reads on birds of India:

1. Of Birds and Birdsong by M Krishnan ( Edited by Shanthi and Ashish Chandola)
2. Common Birds by Sálim Ali and Laeeq Futehally
3. Some Indian Friends and Acquaintances – the study of the ways of birds and other animals frequenting Indian streets and gardens by Lt Colonel D D Cunningham
4. Bird Migration Atlas by Balachandran, Katti & Manakadan
5. Watching Birds by Jamal Ara
6. The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck by Rory Nugent
7. The Fall of a Sparrow by Sálim Ali
8. The Common Birds of Bombay by E H Aitken (EHA)
9. Birds in Our Lives by Ashish Kothari
10. The Living Air by Aasheesh Pittie

Her pick of the top reads on global bird topics:

1. Bird –Watching as a Hobby by W D Campbell
2. Save the Birds by Roger Tory Peterson, Rudolf Schreiber and Walter Cronkite
3. The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-Stempel
4. The Birds of Central Siberia by Helena Rogacheva
5. A Year of Birds by Iris Murdoch
6. Birds by Character by Wallace, Reese, Busby, Partington & Hume
7. Birds of Aotearoa – a natural and cultural history by Margeret Orbell
8. The Wind Birds – Shorebirds of North America by Peter Matheissen
9. The Penguin Book of Bird Poetry Edited by Peggy Munsterberg
10. How to be a Bad Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes

Also read the curated lists by:

M K Ranjitsinh

Aasheesh Pittie

Dr. Mahesh Rangarajan