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I recently received ‘Indian Bird Sounds’ by C. Chappuis, F. Deroussen and D. Warakagoda, a beautiful set of audio CDs containing calls of 370 bird species from the Indian peninsula. A friend had told me about this new product and I thought it would be ‘yet another’ set of bird call CDs.. but the moment I put my hands on it, I knew this one was special!
The well-designed and packaged box contains 5 CDs and a booklet. The booklet is very handy, pocketable and can easily be carried in the field. It is in two languages (English and French) and contains a nice introduction about bird sounds and their usefulness to amateur/serious birders and to ornithologists of course. The booklet is essentially an index that helps in quick search of a particular call/sound (easily identified by a number) and each call name in the booklet is accompanied by text describing where the sound was recorded along with related/additional information about it.
The CDs contain calls of 370 bird species that nest in the Indian peninsula, calls have been recorded in India and some other countries as well. That a tremendous amount of work and detailing has gone into the making of this product, produced in association with the Society of ornithological studies, France and VIStA India, is evident just by looking at the set contents!
The sound files import flawlessly into iTunes music software. They have been very well edited, most about 45 seconds long, some longer than a minute. Transferred to an iPod, they can easily be carried in the field and together with the booklet, can make an amateur or hobby birder like me feel more confident about accurate bird identification.
Besides being of use to amateur/serious birders, the sounds in the CDs are also entertaining! I am sure many bird lovers would love to go through them again and again. They can also be a fantastic travel companion! The calls in my iPod and the booklet in my hand should make some of my journeys less boring!
The box set is priced at Indian Rupees 999, which works out to Rupees 200 (USD 4.50) per CD, a steal in my humble opinion! Moreover, I feel the product is invaluable! Indian Bird Sounds is shipped globally from Hyderabad, India. For information and ordering, please contact Sikha Ghosh emailsikha [at] gmail.com or Anne Chappuis chappuis.anne [at] gmail.com or Luc de Golbéry luc.de-golbery [a] decisiongraphics.fr
Kindly note: I am not affiliated in any way to the producers/promoters of ‘Indian Bird Sounds’ nor am I qualified to write a professional review. I decided to blog about it because I felt it is a wonderful product and more birders should know about it and benefit from it.
As posted on Delhibird Yahoo! mailing list on March 14, 2003:
For the past couple of days I’ve been working at home till wee hours of morning. Owing to pleasant March weather windows have to be kept open but fans are not yet running, so it’s relatively quiet at night. While working, I’ve also been listening to bird calls coming in from nearby Deer Park (Hauz Khas area, New Delhi).
Last morning at about 4 am a Common Hawk Cuckoo started calling, she kept on calling for about half an hour. Often at night I hear the unmistakable “pick-wick, pick-wick” calls of Eurasian Thick Knees, heard it once last night. Spotted Owlets call from the tree right outside my window (at two three different times) almost every night.
At about 3 am last night, the park came alive when dozens and dozens of Peacocks called from different parts of the park, it seemed to me that they were alarmed at something and communicating with each other..
A typically alarmed Redwattled Lapwing can be heard anytime of the night. In December, twice I heard a Magpie Robin sing beautifully at about midnight, I wonder why…
Well.. I hope this e-mail would silence those critics who claim Delhi does not have much of a nightlife!
