The Woman Behind The Beautiful Bird Photos

Selvi Viswanathan of Los Alamos is the woman taking the beautiful bird photos published recently in the Los Alamos Daily Post. Photo by John McHale.ladailypost.com

By CAROL A. CLARK
Los Alamos Daily Post
caclark@ladailypost.com

Readers have been asking “who is taking the beautiful bird photos that have been appearing lately in the Los Alamos Daily Post?”

The woman behind those beautiful photos is Selvi Viswanathan, a Los Alamos resident and nature lover.

The yard of her home on Los Pueblos is the first in Los Alamos designated a certified wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation, a designation she received in 1995.

“I always wanted to have a pond to attract birds,” Viswanathan said. “My son Hari was coming home from college each summer to work at the laboratory and so he built a pond for me in 1995 and a warbler pond in 1996 to grow Lotus, which is the national flower of India.”

Viswanathan, 82, was born in Berhampur, Odisha, India and raised by her parents who instilled her interest in birds, she said. Her father was a poet who wrote poems in their mother tongue, Tamil, who made his living as a mathematics professor. He wrote 100 children’s poems watching Viswanathan and mentioned that as a child she loved to watch sparrows and crows, she said.

“My mother gave me the chore of feeding crows with a little bit of cooked rice mixed with Dhal (similar to lentil) and a little ghee, before we ate lunch around 10 a.m. each day,” Viswanathan said. “As a girl I did this. We have a holiday like Thanksgiving each Jan.  15 to thank the crows and sparrows and we treat them with special sweet rice and curd rice. While putting the food on a plantain leaf that we usually got from the back yard, we say, ‘Like crows and sparrows, we brothers and sisters should live long and happy together.’ This is really a holiday for women in Tamilnadu and my favorite festival.”

Viswanathan married V.K (Nathan) Viswanathan Jan. 16, 1967 in India. He was living in New York City at the time and it was an arranged marriage.

“My brother and Nathan’s brother were colleagues in Bombay, and so it happened,” she said. “I landed at Kennedy Airport Feb. 5, 1967, flying alone for the first time to join Nathan.”

Viswanathan and her husband lived in a studio apartment in Manhattan, far different than the small town she came from in India, she said, adding that her husband suggested she visit the Natural History Museum, which she could reach by subway.

“Here is where my interest in birds really began,” Viswanathan said. “I took notes and was fascinated by the exhibits. But there were no birds where I lived so in 1969, we bought a house with a nice yard and wonderful neighbors in New City, NY. One of my neighbors Madeline White told me there is a cardinal nesting in our yard. I bought a bird house but filled it with bird seed first, I did not know the difference in those days between the feeder and bird house.”

Her son Hari was born in 1971 and had fun running after a robin on the lawn, he is also a nature lover. The family moved to several places and in 1975, settled in Yorktown Heights, NY.

“We bought a nice marble bird bath as all birds need water not only to drink but also take bathe,” she said. “This is when my husband decided to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 and we brought the bird bath here with us.”

In 1978, after living two years in Santa Fe, the family moved to a home on North Mesa before buying the home on Los Pueblos where they have lived for 35 years.

“Our home is located between two fabulous canyons and views and here again I started watching birds,” she said. “I also began working at Mary Deal Realty as Realtor and my interest in birds grew more as Bill Deal and Mary were very much interested, too. Also showing houses to customers who seemed interested in nature and talking about birds made me learn more. It was Mary Deal who gave me a catalogue, which had information about certifying yards with the National Wildlife Federation. So, I joined as a member in 1994 and got my certification in 1995.”

Viswanathan said that in 1994 her husband, “gave me a free hand to remodel our house and we added a lot of windows to see the wildlife from inside, especially birds. Now we located our ponds and gardens so we can watch and enjoy the wildlife … including 100 species of birds during these years”.

Viswanathan’s son Hari is a talented photographer of wildlife and shared that talent with his mother.

“I think it was in 2013 that Hari felt I was staying home taking care of my garden and had the time to observe especially butterflies, which Dorothy Hoard inspired me to start taking pictures of. It was at that time that Hari left his camera and taught me.”

Viswanathan uses a Canon 80d with 300mm F4 lens and 1.4x tele extender to take her photos.

“I used to take photos from an upstairs window, but Hari suggested I take them from our deck, which is much better,” she said. “I love taking pictures of birds because they are here year round and it’s interesting to see the different birds appear each season. We are lucky we are in a migration route and during early spring and fall we see colorful migrating birds coming to our pond.”

She added that the advantage of having a pond it that the birds stay longer to drink and bathe so that gives her more time to take pictures.

“My mom has loved nature as long as I can remember,” Hari said. “Over the years she would observe amazing birds such as Western Tanagers, Lazuli Buntings, and most of the western Warblers. These are beautiful, rare birds I’d wanted to photograph for a long time but since I’m not over at my parents for very long (we live 10 minutes away), I missed many photo opportunities. I convinced my mom to learn how to photograph birds in the yard since as a retiree she had plenty of time to catch many amazing photo opportunities. Initially she was intimidated to use a long telephoto lens but got the hang of it quite quickly. She has since become a very good photographer of birds, butterflies and the rare mammal and has even won awards.”

Hari said that along with his mom and dad, photography has become a hobby of his own as well as that of his wife Gowri and their son Aditya.

“The combination of a certified habitat, good photo equipment and paying attention has led to many nice memories for our family,” Hari said.

Along with her love of photography, Viswanathan also volunteers as a docent at the Nature Center, which is closed at this time due to the pandemic. With her experience getting her own yard certified, she led the effort to obtain certification for Los Alamos as the first Community Wildlife Habitat in New Mexico.

“This was my proudest moment,” Viswanathan said. “This showed how the Los Alamos community cares for wildlife. Luisa Grant of the National Wildlife Federation came from Washington, D.C to present the certificate to the County Councilor on April 23, 2016, which was during the Earth Day Festival. With the support of the Pajarito Environmental Education Center we did it in the record time of three years.”

The County installed an official “Community Wildlife Habitat” sign at the Nature Center Nov. 29, 2016 and Viswanathan said she is hoping someday a similar sign will be placed at the entrance to town or at the new roundabout.

A trio of Acorn Woodpeckers perch on a tree branch photographed by Selvi Viswanathan

A Red-breasted Nuthatch holding a seed in its beak photographed by Selvi Viswanathan

A pair of Western Bluebirds perch on a tree branch photographed by Selvi Viswanathan

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