Mr. Salim Moizuddin Abdul Ali, popularly known as Dr. Salim Ali was an Indian ornithologist and naturalist. He is also referred to as “the bird man of India” as he was the first Indian to conduct scientific avian surveys across India. He also wrote several books about birds that popularized ornithology in India. Dr.Salim Ali was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1958, the third highest civilian honor in India, and Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honor in 1976.

In 1933 Salim Ali conducted bird surveys in the princely states of Travancore and Cochin in Kerala. It was during this survey that he recommended creating a bird sanctuary at Thattekad because of its bird diversity. This led to the constitution of the first bird sanctuary in Kerala at Thattekad in 1983 which was named Dr. Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary Thattekad in honor of the bird man of India.

Mr. Ali’s wife Tehmina was also with him throughout the survey. He conducted this survey as part of an initiative by the Bombay Natural History Society aimed at studying and documenting avian diversity in different parts of India. Ali published his autobiography ‘The Fall of a Sparrow’ in 1985, in which he wrote: “Of all my regional bird surveys between the years 1930 and 1950, which I regard as the most productive period of my career, perhaps the one that gave me both as to the fieldwork and writing up its result was the ornithological survey of Travancore-Cochin”.