Discovering Zoology Through My Passion for Birdwatching: Part 1

Abdul Jamil Urfi

I spent a lot of time in the outdoors when I was a young boy. I was fascinated by nature and even built a small zoo at home. My fascination continued to grow over the years and led me to eventually specialize in zoology. But it didn’t happen overnight.

To pursue studies in zoology, I enrolled at the Aligarh Muslim University—an institution like many others in India created in the heydays of the British Raj. On one of my initial visits to the Zoology department, I noticed a large marble slab stuck above an arch at the main entrance on which were etched the words HRH Prince of Wales Zoological Laboratory. That said a lot to me.

Prof. Abdul Jamil Urfi

The Raj had provided funds, training etc but all the higher educational institutions in India were established primarily to further British governance and interests. ‘To form a class who may be interpreters between us [the British] and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect…’, someone really historically famous had said this.

The science block buildings at Aligarh, of the exposed brick type—a fusion of European and Oriental architecture styles built during the British days, with generous donations from rulers of the Princely states of India, really fascinated me. It was in those buildings, with high ceilings and impressive lecture theatres, where professors stood behind a massive desk in front of a vertically sliding blackboard, that I had my first lessons in the sciences. 

Entrance to the zoology department with the marble slab ‘HRH Prince of Wales Zoological laboratory’—a constant reminder of the colonial hangover in scientific research in India.

My favourite lecture theatre was the one in the present day biochemistry department, perhaps originally the Physics lecture hall. Sitting in this beautiful class room, with galleries, chattris (canopies) and jharokas (small windows) on the sides, a large desk for practical demonstrations, I remember attending lectures in physical chemistry—a teacher working out the derivation of Schrodinger’s wave equation on a blackboard. Even today, I find myself re-imagining the sheer elegance of that old style lecture theatre. I hope they preserve it for many future generations. 

The old world feel of the teaching labs in the Zoology department was greatly heightened by the black and white pictures of the long dead famous biologists hanging from the walls—Charles Darwin, August Weisman, Anton Van Leuwenhoek, Russell Wallace, Ronald Ross etc.

Subjects like applied zoology, a hangover from colonial times, continued to be taught in a descriptive manner till our times. Most of the specializations viz. Entomology, Fisheries, Nematology were totally applied in nature. Nothing wrong in that except that I found it…. yawn!

Much of the research going on in the department in those times was dealing with taxonomy of insects, nematodes and other parasites and agricultural pests. It involved peering at specimens under a microscope and describing new species on the basis of morphology. There was also some bio-medical research going on.

The only raison d’être for studying zoology was that it would benefit mankind.

The beautiful buildings and exotic atmosphere aside, my chief regret was that few people seemed interested in zoology itself, especially behaviour, ecology etc, which appealed to me. The buildings then seemed like molluscan shells piled on the sea shore—looking beautiful from the outside, with their intricate carvings and patterns. But the animal which once inhabited them had died long ago.

Alas, the truth also was that nobody was actually that interested in the zoology because it was supposed to be just a passing station on the road toward becoming a doctor. You started with dissecting frogs and graduated to doing surgery on humans. Very strange! 

Birdwatching and reading on natural history helped me sustain my interest in Biology.

Dr. Salim Ali, popularly known as the birdman of India, had once said in an interview ‘Birdwatching is like measles. You have got to catch the disease’. I had caught that disease long ago  and when I began to tire out of the dull and boring indoor lectures and practicals in the Zoology department, it came to my rescue.

In my interest in birds, I soon discovered that I was not alone. A family friend, an elderly lady by the name of Dr. Hamida Saidusszafar who was Professor of Ophthalmology in the Gandhi Eye Hospital of AMU, was also an avid birdwatcher. Very soon, we began exchanging notes about birds and since she had a large collection of books and journals on birds, I frequently dug into those. In this manner I was introduced to a cyclostyled periodical called Newsletter for Birdwatchers, which was a world of its own. In those days without facebook, social media and whatsapp chat groups of today, it was a great platform for birdwatchers from all over the country to share their experiences and know about each other.

Newsletter for Birdwatcher Cover, Vol XX No 2 Feb 1980

The periodical itself was one family’s affair being produced privately and quietly by Mr. Zafar Futehally, assisted by his family members. There were just a couple of people from Aligarh who had published their notes and observations in it. One, Dr Hamida, I already knew. The other was a research scholar in Zoology by the name of Asad Rafi Rahmani with whom I met up quite soon.

The collection’s of my two birdwatcher friends was a veritable goldmine with books on natural history, conservation, birds, animal behaviour etc. There were the all time classics, written by scientists who had made significant natural history discoveries such as Niko Tinbergen’s, ‘Curious Naturalists’, and ‘The Herring Gull’s world’, Eliot Howard’s Territory in Bird Life  and  Konrad Lorenz’s, ‘King Solomon’s Ring’. There were the classics of the conservation movement e.g. Aldo Leopold’s, Sand County Almanac, Rachael Carson’s The Silent Spring and Gerald Durrell’s books on zoo animals. There were also a number of books, written by some remarkably lucid writers who had arisen from the post-world war II era. Their books are regarded as classics even today, such as Leaky’s books on Physical anthropology and the evolution of hominids, Robert Ardrey’s famous ‘The Territorial Imperative’ and Desmond Morris books on observing humans (Manwatching) in the light of modern biology.

Newsletter for Birdwatcher Cover Vol 37, No. 3, May-June 1997

All these writers of yester-years created a major impact on biologists and wildlife scientists of several generations all over the world, even though some of them had said some pretty controversial things. Some had written things which would be considered politically incorrect today and some had proposed theories which were later proved to be scientifically unsound. V.C. Wynne-Edwards book ‘Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour’ (see below) published in 1962 is a prime example. Even though some of these authors were those who had supported Nazis, Fascists and Racists, about which I came to know later,  their books  were simply fun to read and hugely informative for a generation hungry for information and with no Google around.

I was reading books but those which were not prescribed reading in the formal course. But had it not been for those books, coupled with frequent bird watching trips , my interest in nature study might not have grown and  I would not have pursued a career in zoological research, in a manner in which I later did. Watching the living bird, getting to identify different types of them and seeing them foraging, mating, calling, fighting etc in the field fuelled my curiosity about the natural world, particularly ecology and evolution,  much more than dissection of fishes and frogs stored in formalin. It made a lot of sense to study zoology with this perspective.

It is good to read, but one must read critically

I must end on a note of caution. Reading certainly helps but only if it is supported by a discussion group (which was absent in the department) and one also learns to question what one is reading and not simply get carried away by the flow of the narrative.

The quote below from my friend, late Rauf Ali’s memoirs Running away from elephants published in 2018 hits the nail on the head. Rauf, who was a well known Indian wildlife biologist and conservationist, recalls his student days when he had gone to England to study for his PhD on animal behaviour under the famous biologist (primatologist) John Crook. In his first year, as an effort to bring students with third world degrees up to British standards, he was given a list of books to read. But a little episode happened at that time which changed his way of thinking. It also helps me to explain my point:

I’d said in a conversation with Crook that I’d found Robert Ardrey’s book very inspiring; and that I had also been inspired by Konrad Lorenz’s On Aggression. It was after this that I’d decided I wanted to study behaviour. I was given Wayne-Edwards’ book and told to read it. Wayne-Edwards’ thesis was that animals controlled their own population by showing prudence in their feeding and mating, a process described by scientists as ‘group selection’. After a week, I went back and reported that I thought the book was brilliant. This answer appeared to cause considerable gloom and despondency, and I was given a series of critiques to read, on Wayne-Edwards as well as on Ardrey. I’d always been taught, and this is what university in India did, to take the printed word as gospel.  Surely somebody who got something printed could not be wrong? This illusion was very rudely shattered, and I began disbelieving everything I read. At the very least, I would try and disprove it within my head.

Click here to read Part 2