hi, sorry to bump this old thread but now that I've read the two I feel better prepared to answer the question asked by marie b
The book by Amano Samarpan is mostly a collection of pictures of birds along with their names in the local language and their scientific names. He describes every bird in one or two sentences and moves on. I didn't particularly find his book useful, because there wasn't much to "read". I gave it to my cousin who wanted to know local names of birds she sees in her town (Gorakhpur).
The Salim Ali book is an actual "book about birds". He starts with describing what makes birds unique and goes on to describe all different classes of birds. Not as many pictures in the book but he is passionate about birds and describes their behaviour, mating rituals, nest making habits etc. quite well. He begins the book with a quote from Michelet "Birds might live on this earth even if there were no men, but men cannot live without birds"
He describes the common crow thus: "The cheeky, bullying manner of crows can be so amusing that one is apt to be ready to forgive them their misdeeds. But the crow is....a real criminal type".
Reading some of his descriptions made me chuckle more than once, for example when he talks about the House Sparrow: "...the sparrow has the assurance of a peacock, and is convinced that the world and all the works of man have been made for its express convenience"
About the Black Drongo he says: "Kotwal, the Hindi name for a drongo, is extremely apt. Everyone knows that the business of a kotwal or policeman is to keep villains in their place and prevent them from bullying good people. Everyone also knows that the villain of the bird world is the crow....The policeman in this case is much smaller than the villain.....but as someone has said, it is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog that is important." And he gives an amusing description of how the Black Drongo lives up to its name Kotwal.
These are just random examples. This is a man who really loves his birds and describes them like they were his friends. It was a pity that I never knew about him when growing up.
The book has 9 chapters:
1. What are birds?
2. Song and Courtship
3. Nesting habits
4. Migration
5. Town Dwellers (where I quoted from)
6. Scrub and Jungle
7. The Farmer's Friends and Foes
8. The Village Pond
9. Along the Coastline
All these chapters are short and well written. If I ever have kids I'll make sure this book is on their reading list.
Highly recommended, and I salute Dr. Salim Ali.
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