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| Sunday, 27 April 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Portfolio of feathered beauties Birds Within Camera Reach by T. S. U. de Zylva Reviewed by Carol Aloysius "Beside the stream, upon a pointed stone, These beautiful lines by wildlife and jungle lover John Still,which introduce bird enthusiast T. S. U. de Zylva's latest book, "Birds within Camera Reach", no doubt echo the latter's own sentiments as he voyages once again into the kingdom of birds,which has already inspired at least four previous books written by him.
De Zylva takes pains to explain from the outset that his new book is,"neither a field guide nor a primer on birds but rather a mini portfolio of bird pictures", targeted to a mainly school going population. Yet he nevertheless manages to pack in a wealth of information into his brief foot notes on each of the bird images he portrays, to make it an invaluable guide to his young readers. Although he has limited himself to a small but representative selection of indigenous avifauna and excluded migrant birds,in compliance with the wishes of young readers for an affordable book for their individual collections, the author nevertheless portrays thirty four different species of indigenous birds in this imaginatively laid out book with an attractive hard cover.
Each photograph is a work of art and creativity, based on the author's own personal experience and observations, selected in the words of the author, "not so much on orthinologically accurate representations but on the texture and colour of bird plumage - the very essence of bird's beauty". Starting out with the tiniest of birds, the Little Tern which he describes as a "Brooding ground nesting bird", usually seen in the lagoons and tanks of the dry zone, he portrays a striking picture of a Tern sitting on its nest near a tank.Having caught it on his camera lens in an unforgettable close encounter, he writes in a concise yet detailed side note,of the bird which is usually fed at regular intervals by its mate who does the fishing when off duty, "On that particular morning the sitting bird vacated its nest and alighted at the water's edge and her mate came over and fed her a minnow. The morning light was glorious , so I waited for her return and took a picture as soon as she re-alighted on her nest."
Describing the Roseate tern, which he says is arguably the most beautiful tern in the world, he draws attention to the delicate rosy tint on its breast and underparts which he adds is most striking when the birds have just begun to breed (usually around this time of the year, April to June). Commenting on this particular physical embellishment", he makes an interesting and little known revalation on the behaviour of this bird, when he says that it "is proudly displayed to its mate when offering her a small fish - the usual ritual among all terns". The author's camera sweeps across several other endemic birds to hover over a "tiny graceful snowy white bird with yellow slippers, known as the Little Egret, the smallest egret found in Sri Lanka. Commenting on the bird which he has caught" at close range, he writes evocatively, "One morning in the Bathalagoda channel, through a gap in a curtain of bamboo fronds,I saw a Little Egret in a promontory. Pearly morning light from behind outlined the leafy tracery of the bamboos. Rays of sunlight rippled on the dark water. The setting was truly remarkable and the egret standing in lonely majesty provided a finishing touch to a pristine landscape", evocatively. It is snatches of poetic writing such as this that make this book so readable. That and the fact that it is so intensely personal, since all his bird images have been photographed by the author and often after hours of patient observation. Hence the pictures are often coloured by the author's own emotions and hands on experiences of those memorable close encounters with Nature. Among some of the most outstanding photographs include a very striking picture of the large Egret (Egretta Alba Modesta), an exquisite artistic impression of light and shade, where the camera has 'caught' its subject standing in a dark pool of murky water grasping a cat fish in its long pointed bill. The bird, one of several large, medium and small Egrets seemed to be having a common problem - they were having considerable difficulty in swallowing the catch, he writes in his explanatory note. So they resorted to various antics like repeatedly dipping the fish in the water trying to crush them...and even to impale them. Other striking photographs include, the Spoonbill and Purple Heron, the Stork-billed kingfisher, the Greater Flamingo, Green Bee Eater, to the Ceylon Blue magpie, the Scaly thrush, The Ceylon Lorikeet and Ceylon Frog mouth, the Brown fish owl. Even the common jungle fowl is given pride of place in the opening cover. Each of the thirty four photographs is uniquely different from the other and each of them is an exercise in creativity and artistry. Expert photographer that he is, de Zylva has succeeded where amateur bird watchers have failed; to bring out the finest details of his subjects, blending them with the background with imaginative artistry that makes each photograph look like a painting."Birds Within Camera Reach", like all the other books by this veteran bird lover cum photographer, is undoubtedly a work of art. It should be on the shelves of every bird lover, young and old alike . |
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