Radiologist documents bird species through website in Kashmir

Surprised to see his sons identify an alien bird species in a book but being unable to recognise a bird nesting in their garden, a radiologist in the valley has captured the pictures of the avian species of Jammu and Kashmir and categorised them on a website.

His hobby of bird-watching has made Bakshi Jehangir the first person from the state to have taken up the initiative of documenting the species.

Jehangir's decision to form the website came after he found that his two sons were able to immediately identify an "alien" bird species from a photograph in a book, but unable to name the liquid-voiced Golden Orioles (Posh-Nool in Kashmiri) nesting in their garden.

"This (web)site is dedicated to my sons - Kashmir's youngest bird watcher," Jehangir wrote on his website, www. kashmirnetwork.com.

Professionally, Medical Informatics and Telemedicine are his major interests but touched by the declining population of the birds in the Valley, Jehangir decided to document the species "for posterity".

"They are dying out, so they have to be recorded and record has to be correct," Jehangir told PTI.

The database formed by Jehangir includes the "permanent residents" of the Valley and the migratory birds who fly thousands of kilometers to the wetlands of Kashmir every year towards the end of autumn and return at end of winter.