Episode 28: Of birds and birdsong with Dr. Samira Agnihotri

Bird Podcast with Shoba Narayan

With us today is Dr. Samira Agnihotri, who has studied bird song, racket-tailed drongos and ethno-ornithology. Dr. Agnihotri has worked in the Biligiri Rangana Betta or BR Hills from 2005 when she began to study birdsong while pursuing a Master’s degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from the National Centre for Biological Sciences. She then studied racket-tailed drongos, walking through the forests with a mike and recorder, and obtained her Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science. She followed up her research on drongos as a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Studies. She is keenly interested in the traditional ecological knowledge of the Solega people and has dabbled in ethno-ornithologies, collaborating with linguist Dr. Aung Si, and is intent on documenting Solega knowledge and oral histories. Samira is also interested in nature education, and in exploring different ways to popularise the ecological sciences as well as encourage and aid the preservation of traditional knowledge systems. Samira is a member of Punarchith, a collective that works with farmers and rural youth in Chamarajanagar District. Currently, she works at the Office of Communications at IISc.