A Wordsworth at home with Google Lens

It’s not that the green valley behind my house with its myriad flowers and birds sprouted overnight and it’s also not that I had not noticed these offerings of nature earlier; it’s just that this infinite expanse of leisure made possible by a forced, but somehow blessed, isolation of extended lockdowns afforded me a chance to enjoy these bounties of nature to my heart’s content.

I live in a secluded part of Shimla at the edge of a locality called Navbahar from where the reserve forest area starts. I don’t have to walk up to the jungle to enjoy the Wordworthian communion with nature. All these pleasures are close at hand. I’m woken up by the chirping of the birds in the morning – bulbuls, cuckoos, koel or a parakeet or some warbler.

Standing at the balcony behind my house or just sitting at the bedroom window, I can feast on the sight of daisies growing wild in the valley and also see babblers or doves or sparrows bustling in and out of the bushes in search of worms and insects and twittering continuously. Some exotic and unfamiliar birds are also seen perched on the electric wire or an exposed tree branch, emitting loud bubbling songs or simply whistling. I have sighted more than 30 varieties of birds just sitting at the window during this Covid-caused isolation.

Though I enjoyed spotting these fascinating birds daily from my vantage points and photographed them as well with an ordinary camera, my birding experience was soured by my inability to identify the delightful creatures. What should I call the beautiful black-headed squealer with blue-tinged wingtips sitting on the top of the dried tree-trump or the owl-like bird I saw landing on the fence this morning?

So I sought the help of books. I ransacked my home library and fished out a hitherto untouched Birds of Kangra by Jan Willem den Besten. I found it to be a well-researched book with over 500 photographs with precise description of the birds in Himachal Pradesh and stories from rich local folklore. But, somehow, it failed to serve my purpose. It was a bit exasperating and fruitless to compare my poorly photographed images with the professional ones in the book to identify the birds.

Then my son turned up with a solution to my predicament, “Use Google Lens, Dad!” Yes, that was the answer. It’s an AI-powered app available in smartphones. You just have to point it towards an object or its image and it not only identifies but also gives detailed information about the subject. It is best for identifying books, movie posters, monuments and, yes, birds and flowers.

Now I point my cell phone camera at the beautiful owl-like creature looking out of the bushes or it’s already captured image and press the Google

Lens icon. It tells me that it is an Asian barred owlet active during daylight also unlike the commonly known owls. Or that the pale-headed, heavily spotted, beaked bird poking continuously at the stem of a Saal tree is the Marhatta woodpecker. And that the countless daisylike flowers in the valley, like the daffodils, are “Shasta daisies, a commonly grown flowering perennial plant of family Astercaceae.”

Now, my birding experience or appreciation of nature may not be anywhere near that of a Salim Ali or a William Wordsworth, but with the help of this modern contraption, I’m enjoying the blissful world of bewitching birds and flowers around my abode.

I’VE SIGHTED MORE THAN 30 VARIETIES OF BIRDS JUST SITTING AT THE WINDOW DURING THIS COVID-CAUSED ISOLATION