Quite a few of the Indian bird species are named in his honour
YELLOW-BROWED BULBUL CUTOUT
OOTY: For any genuine bird watcher in the country, it is difficult to forget Thomas Caverhill Jerdon (12 October 1811 - 12 June 1872), a pioneering ornithologist of the British era who described, marvelously, the birds of India.
A naturalist in his own way, the works of T.C. Jerdon, who was a physician, zoologist as well as botanist, show his commitment towards the cause and his love for the world of avians.
While Monday, October 12, marks his 204th birth anniversary, Dr P.J. Vasanthan, another physician-cum-ace-bird watcher, gratefully recalls T.C. Jerdon’s works in the Nilgiris as well as other parts of India and his contribution in understanding the avian diversity in the country.
“Few are aware that 16 species of birds out of India’s tally of around 1,138 were first described from the Nilgiri hills. The credit of the discovery of all but two of
them from the Nilgiris goes to Capt. Surgeon T.C. Jerdon, who was in the service of the East India company then,” said Dr Vasanthan.
Appointed Assistant Surgeon in the service of the company on 11-9- 1835, Dr Jerdon was first posted to Ganjam district in present day Odisha.
Having shown a keen interest in nature in his earlier days it was here that he described the birds of the Eastern Ghats, Dr Vasanthan noted.
“Jerdon visited Nilgiris on leave in 1841 and here he met and married the niece of Gen. L.W. Watson. The couple lived at Woodside in Ooty around 1845 till Jerdon’s appointment as Civil Surgeon of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh,” Dr Vasanthan divulged and added that Jerdon continued his work on birds later at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, Thalassery in Kerala and at Darjeeling.
Quite a few of the Indian bird species are named in his honour and the prominent among these is the critically endangered Jerdon’s Courser which was once considered to be extinct and which is found only in the Sri Lankamalleswara wildlife sanctuary at Andhra Pradesh.
This bird was first described by Jerdon in 1848 but was not seen again until its rediscovery in 1986, Dr Vasanthan explained.
Amazing blue mountain birds that brit identified
Little more than a dozen of the avian species were identified and described by T.C. Jerdon in the mid-1800s in the Nilgiris.
Dr P.J. Vasanthan said, “The birds that Jerdon described from the Nilgiris during a short period of two years are the ‘Black-chinned laughing thrush’ from the region around Kotagiri, the Indian Blackbird from Avalanche, the Eastern Grass-owl, the Indian Swiftlet, the Blue-faced Malkoha, the White-bellied Blue flycatcher and the Brown-cheeked Fulvetta from the Coonoor Pass, the Jungle Prinia from the Segur Ghat, and the Broad-tailed Grass bird from Gudalur.
White-bellied Blue-flycatcher
Besides these, the birds spotted and recorded by him included “the Yellow-browed Bulbul, the Black-and-orange Flycatcher, the Nilgiri Flycatcher, the Long-billed Pipit, the Nilgiri Blue Robin and the Nilgiri Pipit from various parts of the district,” noted Dr Vasanthan. He said that this showed that Jerdon crisscrossed the Nilgiris in the 1800s in search, identification and description of birds of Nilgiris, to make the path easy for future generations in the identification of birds.
Six among this list are known to be in various categories of threat and seven are range-restricted species confined to the limits of the Western Ghats, Dr Vasanthan pointed out. Jerdon was also the first to describe the phenomena of avian colonization of the artificial water bodies created by the British in the Nilgiris district, the first avian colonist at the newly created Ooty Lake being the Little Grebe, popularly known as the Dabchick, he noted.
Jerdon’s most important publication could be considered to be The Birds of India compiled in two volumes and first published in 1864 depicting over 1008 species that reflected his dedication in documenting the avian wonders of the India, he said. Declining health forced Jerdon to retire to England and there he continued his work on natural history until his demise on 12 June 1872, Dr Vasanthan concluded.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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