There are multiple ways to start birding. You may be accompanied by your senior, who has been birding for a long time. You hire a bird guide and start making birding tours with him. You can join a society of birdwatchers and join them occasionally whenever your time permits and during your off days. However, observations had to be perfect and that is how you learn the behavior of birds, the different feather structures, and the associated terminologies to describe those. And for that purpose, you must have a field guide, which helps you to determine the bird you saw today and how it differs from other birds. 

 

Field Guides

Bird identification does not need a photographic guide. Hand-drawn plates are much better and more user-friendly. In general, we suggest photographic guides, no matter how well written and how accurate, have limited value as a quick reference compared to the field guide for identification. Plates with illustrations showing all the features are better any day if you are trying to identify the bird species. Also, if one is more comfortable with photos then there are apps, which have multiple carefully curated photos of all species at your fingertip. In conclusion, photographic guides can be nice, stay-at-home companions that you can leaf through at leisure. But if you are serious about your hobby then field guides should be your first choice.

Grimmett-Inskipp’s or Krys Kazmierczak is the best field guide containing plates with illustrations. Those are useful for field identification. The “Birds of Bhutan and the Eastern Himalayas” - authored by Grimmett-Inskipp-Sherub in its first edition precisely covers all the avian species from the region. However, recent additions and new birds recorded from Sikkim need to be incorporated in the next editions.

The first state-level field guide, not only for Sikkim but for the Indian subcontinent was “Birds of Sikkim”, which was authored by the famous ornithologist from India Mr. Salim Ali. Ali’s account, when he authored had different nomenclature of birds and does’nt match with current taxonomy in most of the cases. But still, it is a collector's item and has immense historical value.

If someone is interested to go on for a thorough historical study on the birds of Sikkim, then here on our website, we have a segment. Please click on this link and access “Historical Accounts on Birds of Sikkim”.

 

Biology Books

The best bird biology book that is available currently is the third edition of “Handbook of Bird Biology” - authored by Lovette & Fitzpatrick. This piece of gem covers avian diversity, evolution, feathers and plumage structures, bird flight, anatomy, physiology, feeding, mating, social behavior, vocalization, breeding, migration, ecology, conservation, etc. If one has a very deep interest in ornithology study, this book is a must-have. 

Birds of Prey of the Indian subcontinent by Rishad Naoroji is another bird biology book, profoundly used for raptor identification.

 

Notebooks

All-weather notepads are best when you do birding in Sikkim. You can continue noting down, even when it is pouring.