Sri Lanka Birdwatchers Who Knew Omar Ismail - Memories Photos

MY FATHER KNEW THEIR CALLS The Story I Am Trying to Rediscover About Omar Ismail and the Birds of Sri Lanka There are some stories we inherit completely. There are others we spend years trying to put back together. This is one of mine. My father, Omar Ismail, was deeply involved in birdwatching in Sri Lanka from approximately the 1970s through to the 1990s, before he passed away. Among people who knew him and knew his extraordinary knowledge of birds, I have been told that he was regarded as something of a legend. Yet today, I find myself facing a strange situation. I know pieces of his story. I know about his remarkable knowledge of Sri Lanka's birds, I know that he understood their migration patterns and behaviour, I know that he could recognise birds by their calls and could imitate those calls himself, I know that people sought and respected his knowledge, I also understand that he wrote a book about birds, But I cannot find it, and much of what he knew, taught and contributed appears never to have been properly documented. That is why I am writing this article, Not simply to tell my father's story, but to find it. Somewhere in Sri Lanka, or perhaps somewhere much further away, there may be someone who remembers Omar Ismail, Someone may have gone birdwatching with him, Someone may have learned from him, Someone may remember hearing him imitate a bird call and watching a bird respond, Someone may have an old photograph, a letter, a field note, an article, a reference to his name or, perhaps, even a copy of the book I have been searching for. I would dearly like to hear from that person. Because sometimes a person's greatest contribution is not preserved in an archive. It remains in the memories of the people whose lives they touched. And perhaps, after all these years, those memories can help me rediscover the story of Omar Ismail and the birds of Sri Lanka.