India hands for decades, this dynamic duo has been a birding legend across the globe. With a long and abiding love for the Indian subcontinent, their bird guides helped raise the bar for birders, both amateurs and professionals. In the age of COVID-19, Bittu Sahgal connected over video conference and asked them about their passion, drive and their assessment of the future of avians in a wounded biosphere.
Carol and Tim, tell us first about your childhood. How did you lovely people meet?
Carol: I grew up in the coal mining area of east Durham in northern England. My mother told me I was always fascinated with birds, even pointing them out and cooing over them when I was a baby. My first memories of birds were going for Sunday walks with my dad and seeing Eurasian Skylarks song-flighting and watching a covey of Grey Partridges. We first met in 1972 at the home of my then boyfriend, Richard Porter (a very short-lived relationship!). Tim was the lodger and I was fascinated by his stories of his first trip to India, which was in 1970.
Tim: My early years were spent at Hastings, a coastal town in southeastern England, which was richly endowed with wooded parks, gardens, beaches, and a rocky coast; I was fascinated early on by the abundant birds there. My earliest memory was of being attacked by a Mute Swan in the local park; it was not seriously threatening but left its mark in my memory. I started looking at birds seriously when I was 10 years old with my parents, who were both interested, but it took me some years before I could afford my own binoculars and go out on my own.
You visited India 10 years before Sanctuary Asia was born, even before Project Tiger was launched. Did you actually travel all the way overland by bus? And how rough was the going?
Carol: Yes, it was quite easy to travel overland to India back then. In September 1977, we took public buses, first from London to northern Greece; another bus to Istanbul where we spent a few days watching migrant raptors; then another to Tehran where we had to wait four days for a bus to Herat in Afghanistan. On his first trip to India, Tim had especially enjoyed Afghanistan so we spent two weeks birding there and had a great time. From Jhalabad in eastern Afghanistan we took a bus to Peshawar and then a train to Delhi via Amritsar. The roughest part of our journey was travelling through eastern Turkey where the road was unsurfaced at that time. Although we set off from Istanbul with two drivers, one of them was very sick and left the bus almost as soon as we started. In eastern Turkey a stone smashed the front windscreen of the bus, so the young driver put one hand on the windscreen to stop it caving in and the other on the steering wheel for hundreds of miles – an extraordinary achievement!
Tim: Prior to that trip together, I had travelled overland to India in 1970, driving in a minibus with five friends. We had various problems on the way but saw lots of birds and had a great time travelling widely in India and Nepal. We split up in Kathmandu and I travelled back alone, first by ship from Bombay to Kuwait and then overland back to Europe. I had lots of adventures on the way, including being arrested twice!
What was birding like in those early years? Did you know Dr. Sálim Ali?
Carol: The only means of transport that we had were buses, trains and to get around towns and cities we also used tuk-tuks. We walked long distances too! We only met Dr. Sálim Ali once together – in the early 1980s when he visited England. Together with Richard Grimmett, our co-author, we discussed with Sálim Ali, Richard’s idea of setting up the Oriental Bird Club.
Tim: I also met Sálim Ali in 1981 during a CITES meeting that I attended in Delhi. He accompanied the delegates on a trip to Sultanpur, where it was great to learn about his expertise in the field. Identification was difficult in those days with no proper field guides and poor optics and film cameras with inadequate telephoto lenses.
In early September 1977, Tim and Carol Inskipp embarked on an adventurous, overland trip to India. The three-week bus and train journey from London, across Northern Greece, Istanbul, Tehran, Afghanistan, Pakistan... to New Delhi, India, saw them birding all the way. Photo courtesy: Carol and Tim Inskipp.
What went through your head when the Siberian Cranes stopped visiting Keoladeo Ghana National Park?
Carol: I felt deeply shocked. When we visited the national park in early December 1977, we saw 27 Siberian Cranes including three immatures and never dreamed how lucky we were at the time.
Tim: Yes, seeing just two adults and a juvenile in February 1981 made me realise how perilous the situation had become, but it was really sad when we learnt that they had stopped coming altogether.
Phulchowki in Nepal has always been special for you both. When the pandemic passes, where in India would you most like to go and which three birds would be on your bucket list?
Carol: I would most like to visit the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Three birds I would most like to see there are Himalayan Snowcock, Red-mantled Rosefinch and especially the Cheer Pheasant.
Tim: My dream would be to visit Kashmir and see the Spectacled Finch and Orange Bullfinch, but also to go to Arunachal Pradesh and see the amazing Bugun Liocichla.
Not the Himalayan Quail?
Carol: Well, of course I would love to see this species, but I think that finding it would require a determined and probably lengthy search and need the help of dogs. It may well be too difficult a trip for me now.
Tim: I think it may still be out there somewhere but the chances of seeing it for oneself are so small that I don’t think I will try. A Pink-headed Duck might be easier!
What future role do you feel the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Oriental Bird Club (OBC) and other international ornithological organisations should/ could play in India?
Carol: I think the most useful role the OBC could play is to continue to provide small grants for Indian nationals to carry out bird research and conservation work. I find it hard to advise the future role of the RSPB and other international ornithological organisations. Perhaps supporting conservation initiatives of the Indian government and individual state governments would be best.
Tim: The RSPB could continue to support vulture conservation efforts in India because there is still a long way to go before their populations can be considered sustainable. OBC and other international organisations such as the British Ornithologists’ Union can continue to provide grants for individual and small-scale research and educational projects, some of which have proved very successful in the past.
In 1977, the Inskipps counted 27 Siberian Cranes, including three immatures in Bharatpur. On Tim’s visit in February 1981, he could see just two adults. The last sighting of the Sibes was in 2002, after which the cranes stopped visiting India, largely on account of hunting along their migratory routes and habitat changes in India.Photo: Hira Punjabi.
Yes, the RSPB helped the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) with its very successful vulture breeding programme. How are avians going to fare in the midst of the climate crisis that has us in its grip?
Carol: The climate crisis presents enormous challenges for birds. The record high temperatures in the Arctic this summer are especially worrying as these are leading to the thawing of once permanently frozen permafrost below ground. As a result, scientists are predicting that some Arctic birds may be unable to breed this year. If this phenomenon continues, populations of the many Arctic breeding species will decline. Amongst other climate crisis threats, wildlife habitats are being changed. As a result, bird habitat specialists are especially threatened as there are invariably no other suitable habitats close by, so they have nowhere to go.
Tim: Yes, climate change may well be a serious extra threat to Indian bird species whose populations have already been significantly reduced by other factors.
What is your take on future pandemics and might birds be the creatures that unleash the next global pandemic?
Carol: According to a June 2020 scientific paper, there is substantial evidence that the source of transmission of the COVID-19 virus occurred within the Wuhan wet market in China. In these markets, bats and other wild animals are frequently sold and stored in close contact. During several of the world’s past pandemics, bats caused the spread of diseases to people, either from bats to another animal or to people directly. This convincing paper concludes that live animal markets create the perfect conditions for new viruses such as COVID–19 to emerge. If these markets are allowed to continue, the risk of future pandemics will increase. However, it seems that bats or other mammals are much more likely to be the source of such pandemics rather than birds.
Tim: Further pandemics are likely to occur in the future and, although these are more likely to be linked to mammals, the occurrence of highly pathogenic avian influenza has already caused a considerable number of deaths in many countries. Although not yet of pandemic proportions, the possibility that a highly infectious new virus could evolve and potentially spread by human-to-human contact cannot be ruled out.
Is the world going to lose the Great Indian Bustard?
Carol: Very unfortunately, I believe that unless conservation actions recommended by Indian ornithologists, notably Dr. Asad Rahmani, take place, very soon India is going to lose this bird within decades.
Tim: Agree that the Great Indian Bustard is so seriously threatened at the moment that it is likely to become extinct unless some drastic ameliorative measures are implemented urgently.
The Himalayan Snowcock is high up on Carol’s bucket list. This high altitude bird, found in the Himalaya and parts of the Pamir range in Asia, prefers alpine pastures at elevations between 4,000 and 5,000 m. Photo: Mohit Kumar Ghatak.
What’s your take on CITES?
Tim: I was involved with the implementation of CITES for many years as part of my job monitoring the effects of wildlife trade on populations of animals and plants. In the early years, there were many successes with implementing measures in some species to create sustainable systems that allowed regulated trade but, in my opinion, in recent years, too large a proportion of available resources have been concentrated on a few flagship species, to the detriment of many less visible species that may be equally threatened.
Sanctuary and the Wild Foundation are working with colleagues towards regenerating vast ecosystems in India as a way of tackling the worst impacts of climate change. How can ornithologists help?
Carol: First, I would like to applaud Sanctuary and the Wild Foundation for advancing nature-based solutions to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. I think individual ornithologists can help by holding local, state and national governments to account by lobbying in the media and online. Raising conservation awareness is another invaluable initiative as, if people do not know and understand the problems, they will not care enough to take action or support others taking action.
Tim: I would like to echo Carol’s applause for the initiatives to deal with climate change and stress that ornithologists can help by supporting and publicising these initiatives and by collecting and disseminating information on bird populations that will help to reinforce these initiatives.
Carol and Tim Inskipp at the Old Delhi railway station in 2016. Photo courtesy: Carol and Tim Inskipp.
Is it time for avians to replace tigers, as symbols for conservation in India?
Carol: As a passionate bird lover, I would be delighted if birds or one iconic bird species replaced the tiger as a symbol for conservation in India. The Great Indian Bustard, Sarus Crane or Indian Peafowl come to mind as appropriate candidates. However, from what I have seen here in the U.K. and in India, personally I think it would be very difficult to persuade people to value a bird instead of the tiger.
Tim: Although the tiger will inevitably remain as the main symbol for conservation in India, it would be good if some other animals, including birds, could be elevated to equal importance in this regard, emphasising the importance of habitats and ecosystems rather than concentrating on one species, however important that may be.
As lifetime naturalists and ornithologists what would you like to convey to kids about birds and the future of the planet?
Carol: Birds play a vital role in the functioning of all the world’s ecosystems. For instance, they pollinate flowers and control pests, and so provide invaluable help to farmers. Vultures and other birds of prey act as nature’s clean-up crew by devouring carcasses. When birds travel, they take the seeds they have eaten with them and disperse them through their droppings. We must care for and conserve them for the future of the human race and the planet.
Tim: In addition to the important points that Carol has made I would like to emphasise the influence that birds have on Indian culture and the lives of people. Because of a long history of treating birds with respect in many areas of India, they are often unafraid and far more approachable than they are in other countries, often filling areas with song. This makes them ideal subjects to study and learn about the habitats they occupy, along with the multitude of other animals and plants with which India is richly endowed. I hope that young people will appreciate what a wonderful resource they are surrounded by and make the most of it.
