KASARGOD: Neharika D, 13 is busy this summer. All children perhaps are, enjoying their vacations. So what makes Neharika’s vacation special? Well, she is documenting the butterflies around her home at Darbethadka in Kasaragod district. Little Neharika, in fact, is popular among the bird watchers of Kasaragod, having acted as the Young Mentor at ‘Birdathon 2025’ in Kannur. She can identify over 180 birds, both residents and migrating, a knowledge she has picked up since Class 4.
As a Class 7 student of St Bartholomea’s Aided Senior Basic School (ASBS) in Bela, she recently published a book titled ‘Birds - The Hidden World in Our Campus’, a 45-page guide with pictures and names of birds. For nearly a year, she roamed her school – a sprawling six-acre campus – carrying her camera and notebooks, documenting every bird she stumbled on. Neharika documented 84 birds on her campus.
Her book also narrates her methodology, a lucid narrative on how she used to go to school early in the morning.
“I went birding in the early mornings on the first and third Saturdays of every month and explored the nocturnal bird-life during night birding sessions on the fourth Saturday,” Neharika says in her book.
Between November 2024 and September 2025, she observed how the birds behaved on her campus. November felt like an opening to the world of birds post monsoon. Between December and January, the winter set in and the birds stayed longer on branches, she notes. Neharika started noticing not just birds but recognising their sounds and behaviour as well.
When February and March arrived, the birds started building nests and behaving territorial.
By summer, their activities became shorter and were observed around watering holes. When the monsoon arrived, the campus turned green again with more insects.
Insects attracted birds and they turned active again, Neharika writes, documenting their entire cycle.
It all began when was in Class 4. One of the lessons in her Environmental Studies textbook was about birds. Raju Kidoor, an ornithologist and teacher from Kasaragod, visited the school and took the lesson. He took the students for a bird-watching exercise.
“I was so attracted to birds. I started observing them closely after that class. They were so amusing,” Neharika tells TNIE.
She kept in touch with Kidoor, who became her mentor. Parents Gopalakrishna D and Asha Kirana encouraged her to continue her passion. Her father is a farmer while her mother is a higher secondary school teacher. They bought her guides, camera, and study materials. “She kept in touch with me ever since that lesson in Class 4. She would take pictures of the birds and share it for identifying. She started attending bird-watching exercises with bird enthusiasts from the district,” Kidoor says.
The school she was studying offered a variety of bird habitats. The campus has a patch of forest, fruit trees, grassland, paddy fields, and lot of trees.
“The school campus was ideal for her passion,” Kidoor says.
Kerala State Biodiversity Board member-secretary V Balakrishnan, who is familiar with the young bird enthusiast, appreciated Neharika. “Environment is the best addiction. If we can instil that in our children, they will move toward positive addictions,” he says.
Neharika took three months to write her book, putting down all her observations in black and white.
“My uncle Ashwin Raju and aunt Usha Kirana helped me with the book. I’m glad I could publish the book. And I want to become an ornithologist,” says Neharika, who is searching for the right school to continue her studies in Class 8 as her old school has only up to Class 7.
This story has been written by Arockiaraj John Bosco.