Book documents bird life at Kerala Police Academy
The Hindu
‘Parakkunna Soundaryangal’, co-authored by top IPS officer B Sandhya and police photographer V G Vinod, describes close to 100 species of birds on the Kerala Police Academy campus
The Isabelline Wheatear is a little brown bird found in Russia, Central Asia and northern Pakistan. When it was spotted at the wooded campus of the Kerala Police Academy at Ramavarmapuram in Thrissur, photographer VG Vinod’s interest was piqued. He looked it up online, cross checked with a bird-watching group and verified with experts before concluding that it was indeed the Isabelline Wheatear on a brief migratory stop on the campus.
The campus, sprawling across 348 acres, receives a number of migratory birds, some of them rare. Vinod, a senior civil police officer, with the then Director of the Police Academy and present Director General, Kerala Fire and Rescue Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards, B Sandhya, decided to document this bird wealth in a book. Titled Parakkunna Soundaryangal (Flying Beauties), the book in Malayalam, published by the Kerala Bhasha Institute and released recently. Containing photographs and descriptions of 96 species, it can be used as a field guide to the bird life in the Police Academy.