THE SINHARAJA BIRD WAVE AND THE GODS IN THE AIN FOREST
Birds of Sri Lanka by Gehan de silva Wijeyarathne was published on Thursday 26th of February 2009 at the barefoot gallery Colombo. The book launch was coincides with a seminar by him called The Sinharaja bird wave and the gods in the Rain forest.
This is the first title to be published in the heritage publications series of the National trust Sri Lanka in the national trust heritage series. This book will cover 100 species of birds in 208 pages illustrated with photographs and the text written in a style to foster an interest in birds amongst the public. The talk is subtitled a quest for birds in the rainforest, war zones and whale rich waters. However it is broader in scope, Gehan begins by looking at the evolutionary pressures of god- like processes or God like beings which have shaped us animals (including birds) and resulted in complex multi species relationships like the Sinharaja bird wave. He takes a step back to take a 3.5billion year journey to see how life has evolved and our role in it and life’s trump card, sex. He looks at modeling chaos to explain how stable or unstable these relationships can be. The Sinharaja Bird wave is discussed as an example of branding and pitching stories to the international media to publicize Sri Lanka. He wraps up with a few images of birds from Mannar and touches briefly on how the recent publicity “Best for blue whales” opens up another frontier in bird watching as well as the need for legislation. The talk touches on a variety of subjects from evolution, faith systems, pitching to the international media This was an unconventional talk with an irreverent view of humankind’s place in the universe. Religious people who take offence at a field naturalist’s view at looking at the universe may wish to not attend.