The mandate of this bibliography is to record all that has been published on the birds of South Asia, comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet -- which countries lie mainly in the Oriental Realm, and partly in the Palaearctic Realm (Afghanistan, Himalayan regions, and Tibet). It restricts itself to material (printed, electronic or digital format) arising from observations within the political boundaries of these countries. It does not contain material on studies done in other regions on species that reside there but migrate to the above countries either during 'winter' or 'summer', except when there is substantial mention about the above countries in such studies. It comprises records from 1713 to 31 March 2022, and is a work in progress, being continuously updated.


When using this bibliography, please note the following points:

About authors:

  • Authors are arranged alphabetically and chronologically. Spellings are not corrected, and appear as they did in the respective paper, etc. Use of multiple spellings or name styles for the same person is also left as is.
  • A search produces all occurrences of an author's name, irrespective of the person's sequential place in a multi-author publication.
  • A search based on a part of an author's name also produces results, but care should be taken while doing this, for obvious reasons.

Keywords are based on:

  • The name of a place (site) or area. This could well be a wetland, sanctuary, national park, city, district, state, country, etc.
  • Binomial or trinomial scientific name, Genus, Family, Order, Common or vulgar English name e.g., 'heron,' bird of prey,' 'raptor,' etc.
  • Specific English names e.g., 'Little Egret,' 'Tawny Eagle,' etc., are generally not indexed as keywords.
  • New names from South Asia are indexed and the resulting (and extant) trinomial scientific name of these, are indexed, if required.
  • Biological characteristics of birds e.g., breeding, feeding, display, behaviour, preening, etc., are also indexed as keywords.
  • Ornithological subjects resulting from the study of birds e.g., 'birdwatching,' 'checklist,' 'ring recoveries,' 'collection,' 'catalogues,' etc. These words are prefixed with the word 'Ornithology' for convenience. Searching such keywords will require entering the following string: "ORNITHOLOGY : BIRD HITS", etc.
  • Scientific name keywords have generally been added as they appeared in a publication. No effort has been made to change them, especially dated names, to the extant scientific name.
  • Users are thus advised to search synonymous binomens of taxa to derive maximum benefit from the database, e.g., for the Falco tinnunculus, and Cerchneis tinnunculus.
  • An effort has been made to retain the original spellings of scientific names, even if they appeared to be erroneous. 

Cautionary notes:

  • This database does not purport to be a complete bibliography of ornithological literature for the geographical area mentioned above.
  • All possible care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information. But the fine-tuning of such a database is a continuous process given the vast range of material covered and the generally inaccessible nature of much ornithological literature, especially that which is over a century old. Errors also occur, as the source of many references is second-hand in nature -- having been added from the reference sections of various papers, books, etc., where they may have been wrongly printed.
  • Selection of Keywords is a highly personal affair when one gets down to specifics. Something akin to one man's keyword being another's nightmare. I have tried to select keywords that are generally broad-based, though not always successfully. Please keep this in mind when using the bibliography. Experiment to familiarise yourself with them.

 

If you have queries or comments, please contact me at aasheesh.pittie at gmail dot com