Ananda Samudhram

I’m a passionate bird watcher working on spreading the joy of bird watching to everyone, everywhere. My books promote bird watching for all ages. Regular bird watching adventures help to maintain our mental and physical fitness. Children, young adults, working folks and the elderly can enjoy identifying birds through sight and sound, exercising their minds, whilst walking on trails in nature parks, exercising their bodies. Thus, birding is an exciting, wholesome activity for families.

People are often surprised to learn about blind bird watchers, who enjoy identifying birds via sounds. My tales for children, featuring the adventures of a little sparrow, Paro, and his friends, Hooty (a worldly owl) and Beecstar (a flamboyant woodpecker), are published on cream colored paper, in large font, emphasizing non-visual cues, catering to readers with visual impairments. These books promote audiobook narration as an exciting activity for everyone, particularly children with visual impairments. My books seek to foster a love of birds amongst children in general, since the readers can sight sparrows, owls and woodpeckers everywhere, and relate to the tales' main characters.

My fun bird watching journals, published in a variety of colors to cater for different preferences, offer a structured approach to recording key information, including geographical locations, and common and scientific names. These journals compel birdwatchers to capture photos and bird calls with their smartphones. Birding consists of sighting the birds and hearing their calls and songs, as well as identifying them. My journals encourage recording the sightings and calls on the field and determining the names of the birds off the field, in a classroom or lab. This two-stage approach enables birdwatchers to fully experience the thrill of sighting the birds without the distraction of simultaneously identifying them, forestalling potentially noisy discussions that may cause the birds to take flight in fright!