Muscat – Nasser al Kindi, an avid nature lover, wildlife photographer-filmmaker and writer on Friday launched his new book 101 birds of Oman, a treasured project – the fruit of over10 years of labour – committing part of the proceeds of sale towards the Let’s Read campaign. He shot a photo of a barn owl in the Sharqiyah sands 15 years ago, and that’s where his fascination for birds began and finally turned to a ‘calling’, he tells Hubert Vaz in an exclusive interview. Excerpts:

How did you get interested in birds of Oman?

It all started with photography and then I evolved to filming documentaries and writing books on birds. So, my relationship with photography started many years ago, when in the 90s I set up a commercial and industrial photography studio in Ruwi. In those days, there was no digital photography and we produced our work mainly using medium format. The studio’s main camera was a Mamiya RB67, a camera I had to travel to buy. Most of our studio lights were bought and shipped from India.

Fast forward to around 2010, I was crossing the Sharqiya Sands when we stopped for a coffee break under a few palm trees irrigated by an underground well. A medium sized bird perched on the fence and I quickly changed my lens an captured my first photograph of a Barn Owl. That was my first encounter with an owl, at midday. Later of course I managed to photograph many owls.

From that day onward, I concentrated my photography on birds and wildlife in general. It was like I found my niche, my calling. Then I began to strive to spend much time in the great outdoors, photographing and recording my observations. Simultaneously, I started reading and learning about ornithology.

In 2016, I left my day job and applied to pursue a Masters Degree in Wildlife Documentary Production in the UK. Thanks to technology, I was interviewed by the University of Salford while I was birding near the Thai border with Myanmar. While at the university, I filmed and produced three documentaries on birds in Oman and later made another longer documentary on the effects of a cyclone on birdlife in Dhofar.

I had also worked on my first book about birds, which was published in 2016. Later during COVID times, I worked on smaller books for younger readers. I had been a writer for much of my working life, so this felt like a natural progression and one which I enjoy thoroughly.

Photography, writing and filming takes a lot of time, how do you manage the three interests?

These interests intersect but they demand some form of discipline, in the sense that they require you to wake up early. I tend to do much of the writing in the very early hours of the morning so that I can be in the field by sunrise. I am again in the field by late afternoon. But this is not a daily routine, to accommodate another equally important step.

Today’s cameras allow us to take many frames per second (fps). While this is a welcome technology, it does mean that you go back to your studio with huge files and a large number of images; sometimes thousands of images. So, in addition to photographing and filming, I spend days culling images and post-processing the selected ones. These selected photos are then catalogued, archived and backed up.

This is an important step. As a writer, I am particularly interested in photographs that capture a profile of the bird as well as some of its most important field markings. There are other elements that go in the selection process, such as lighting, background and above all the posture of the head and eye contact. The latter means that the head of the bird is turned towards the camera at an angle of around 30 to 45 degrees.

Could you describe your latest book 101 Birds of Oman and how it came about?

101 Birds of Oman provides photos and descriptions of 101 birds. The photos were taken in the span of around ten or more years. The descriptions are written in an easy-to-follow manner, so that they are accessible to people not familiar to birding jargon.

The book also has an introduction that furnishes important information about birds in Oman and outlines how the book was written and the photos compiled. It is important to note that all photos were taken in the field without the use of any form of baiting or calls etc. I simply roam around the country at different seasons, following migration and transiting periods. Some photos were taken from my car, others were captured with me crawling on my belly, with camouflage over me. Sometimes, the camouflage is a simple bed sheet or table cloth, in colours that match the surroundings. For example, I photograph shore birds by following this simple tactic – I watch where they feed, park my car, and start crawling towards them with camouflage over me. Often, the birds might fly away, but 20 minutes or so later they come back and feed oblivious to my presence.

I have over the years developed a number of tactics to approach birds and get closer to them without them feeling frightened by my presence. Last week, for example, I photographed a Common Redstart feeding near sulphur water in the Empty Quarter while I was on foot. It was so comfortable with my presence and eventually so curious that it came too close for my camera to lock focus. But I gave it its space and time and it started posing for the camera atop tiny plants and shrubs, while I was flat on my belly, with the camera and large lens mounted on a ground pod.

It is in moments like these and encounters as such that I feel one with nature. I am in total silence, eyes focused, head clear of preoccupations, and then nature plays its chorus of beautiful tunes.

Can you tell us about the bird habitats in Oman and how favourable they are for birds?

There are a number of important habitats in Oman. In fact, we know of at least 33 important bird and biodiversity habitats designated by Birdlife International. There are also at least 18 potential RAMSAR sites, that is the Convention on Wetlands.

And we do not have to go far to see and enjoy watching birdlife. Muscat, for example, boasts a great number of birding sites, such as Qurum Nature Reserve (Qurum Park) and the khors (wadi and sea water bays) along the road from the coastal road from Ghubrah to Seeb. There is also Quriyat, a great habitat to watch birds. By far, the greatest two areas for birding in Oman are Fins and Barr al Hikman on one side and the coastal plains of Dhofar on the other. The unique weather patterns of Dhofar allow for migration throughout the year.

Do you think this book can be kept in school/college libraries for young researchers? Are you working towards that?

Absolutely. Indeed, I am often asked by schools to present birdlife to their students and pupils. At the moment, I am working on a number of projects, amongst them some intended to younger readers. I am also co-authoring a book on wildlife, which will hopefully see the light soon, when we find a sponsor to help us print the book.

There is also a huge community of travellers coming to Oman to see birds. Sometimes, I stop to chat, mainly because I am curious how they have reached that particular place about which very few people know. Last month, while travelling to Salalah by road, I stopped a few kilometres from the main road. I do not know of many people that know that place. There, I found the birders who have flown all the way from Spain to watch birds in Oman. They told me that they had come to know about this place while reading many field reports on the Internet.