Born on 12 November 1896, Salim Ali scraped through high school. He barely passed the matriculation exam of the Bombay University and dropped out of St. Xavier’s College in his first year.
What attracted the innate scientist in him was the forest that surrounded his family’s tungsten mines in erstwhile Burma.
Having honed his skills in the forests and made connections with notable scientists at the Forest Service in Burma, Ali returned to India in 1917, with an abandoned university degree and eyes full of dreams.
Indian birds have not been studied systematically, so would the society send him on ornithological surveys? He didn’t want a salary, only expenses.

Thus, for the next 20 years Salim Ali roamed the subcontinent, studying birds from Kutch to Sikkim, from Afghanistan to Kerala.
In 1930, Salim Ali went to the Bombay Natural History Society with a proposal.
These surveys would later on earn him the title of ‘India’s Birdman.’

#SalimAli #FatherOfOrnithology #BirdmanOfIndia #Birds #history

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