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.
