Mangalore: Shivashankar - Capturing Birds, the Creative Way

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore

Mangalore, Jun 18: Bird is probably the most beautiful of nature's creations. Capturing birds at the right moment, in their full glory, is an art that Shivashankar, an ornithologist does perfectly.
 
Bird photography is a very challenging hobby, requiring specialized skills and equipment. Shivashankar is a pro at capturing the avian behaviour and their habitats.

Shivashankar is a software engineer by profession and toured countries like US, Singapore and Malaysia on work. He has spent more than two years on data collection and photo editing. In his childhood and growing-up years, he spent his free time on bird photography in his garden in Karkala. This hobby fuelled his interest in birds in the surrounding area.

He says he was inspired by ornithologists Clement Francis and Sudhir Shivram, from whom he has assimilated a fund of knowledge, and so also famed ornithologist Dr Salim Ali who has done a systematic survey on Indian birds, and was a pioneer in the field.
 
Presently he is residing in Karkala, a region well-known for biodiversity forests like Durga Forest Reserve, lakes and valleys. Most of his images are from this region.
 
Shivashankar says bird photography is not easy as one needs to wait patiently for the right moment with the right equipment to capture the flying wonder in all their beauty. He has an experience of 15 years in photography and 7 years in capturing birds through his lens.
 
Being a specialist in bird photography, he is able to grasp and identify bird sounds and their place of nesting. One bird that eludes him is ‘Waynad laughing thrush’, a bird found in thick forests, not visible to human eyes. From past two months Shivashankar has spendt his weekends in search of this bird and is still unable to trace it.

There are 389 recognized species of birds in South Canara, and Shivashankar has captured over 300 of them, making a vast and exquisite photo collection of the colourful creatures.
 
"Initially, when I used to capture birds, all varities would look similar. But with frequent exposure and practice, I am able to identify different types of birds. My goal is to capture the best images of birds in their different postures and angles," he said.
 
He is accompanied by his friends Prashanth, Karthik and Karunakar in his ventures.
 
Exploring different varieties of birds in South Canara, he has spent nearly four years on bird photography and managed to gather an exquisite collection of birds. He has participated in various exhibitions and had his photos published in various books and magazines like ‘India’s Birds’ a quarterly journal, ‘Rainforest Safari’ (Carlton books ltd, UK), ‘Glimpses from India’s Natural World’ (Broadway publishers) and ‘Birds of Kolkata’.
 
He aspires to exhibit his photos in many other places and wants to develop an application on birds which runs on Android software, where huge collections of bird photographs can be added at a nominal price.
 
He has published a book - ‘Birds of Southern Coastal Karnataka’ which is a sequel to 'Field Guide to the Birds of Dakshina Kannada’. In this new edition (Birds of Southern Coastal Karnataka) the illustrations of birds have been replaced by colour photographs. There are 56 colour photographic plates depicting 224 species of birds. This bilingual book is published in English and Kannada and is user friendly for bird watchers of all ages. Ancillary information on bird life, bird watching, bird migration, breeding and nesting of birds is clearly depicted.

To get in touch with Shivashankar, email: shivanayak@gmail.com.