The unusual ecological tale of Sippighat, Andamans

Our wonderful week at the Andaman islands included stopping by at Sippighat.  (The place names on the islands are a delightful mixture, and warrant an independent post - ranging from Junglighat, Dollygunj, Guptapara and Sippighat to Aberdeen and Rifleman Island!)

The newly formed Sippighat "wetlands".  All those black dots are waterbirds - whistling ducks, cotton teals and coots.

The tsunami of Dec 26th of 2004 changed many things all around us, and Andamans was affected in several ways, with an enormous human toll and ecological changes.  Some islands sunk by as much as a metre because of the earthquake, and at Sippighat, which is about 10kms from Port Blair the seawaters rolled in on a 10m high tsunami wave, and the land was inundated, and has remained waterlogged ever since.  The army has built a bridge to get across the newly formed water bodies.

Why could they not use these boats, I wondered.  or did the
tsunami wave wreck them?

We drove by the morning we arrived, on our way to ANET at Wandoor, and we saw the skeletons of drowned boats, submerged homes and abandoned building projects.

As we gawked in astonishment at this, a bunch of whistling teals took off from the water, with their characteristic whistling call, did a sortie and landed back in.  These freshwater ducks had obviously adapted to the now brackish waters of Sippighat, just like the Cotton Teal groups?

White-bellied sea eagle - Photo by Pritam

Up above, a White-bellied sea eagle glided lazily as a common myna flapped its wings busily, trying to keep up with it.  

We clearly saw the characteristic wedge-shaped tail, and raised wings while gliding

The Sea Eagle was a delight - it swooped down into the waters and picked up a fish in its talons, with one expert dive, and the bunch of us "aahed" involuntarily!

The waters were abuzz with bird life - swamp hens, coots and egrets of all sizes.  The swallows swooped around in the air above, but there was no sign of the Andaman Teal which supposedly is found here.  

Cotton Teal  Nettapus coromandelianus - Photo by Sivakumar

Cotton Teals swam by in groups - and in our excitement, the females were first mistaken for Andaman Teals.  A closer look and much discussion ensued, since none of us had seen an Andaman Teal earlier, it was worse than the one-eyed leading the blind!

The Forest Dept board finally did help, as quite clearly, the ducks we were seeing had an eye stripe and not the white ring around the eye.

It was a cloudy morning, and every now and then there would be a welcome thundershower for a few minutes, but yet we sweated inside our raincoats, the showers increasing the already high humidity levels.

The relatively new army bridge across the waters.  The waters have become a means of moving goods across the island.

We watched some feral ducks, kingfishers and a lone Great Knot busy in the mud.  Suddenly there was a commotion among the Cotton Teals, and three males were mobbing one hapless female, who was trying to get away, quite unsuccessfully.  I was sorely tempted to throw a stone at those male ducks and scatter them....should I have?

We were commandeered into the bus by Vijay, as Manish and team waited at ANET, and the cloudy sky looked ominous.

On another evening visit, on the way back from Chidiyatapu, we stopped again and this time Zoya from ANET took us in to another part of Sippighat and there we did see the Andaman teals (Anas albogularis) with their characteristic eye patch.  These are endemic to these islands, and are now considered as a separate species from Sunda Teals.  There are supposedly about a thousand of these teals. and we were privileged to see a large flock of them. 

Andaman teals (Anas albogularis) - Photo by Sivakumar

Once again though, for me, it was the White Bellied Sea Eagle that was most memorable.  We saw a pair of them, roosting in the trees beyond the waters, and what appeared to be a nest was spotted through our binoculars.

They took turns gliding over the waters, before perching majestically on the tree, settling down for the evening.

White Bellied Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) -
Photo by Sivakumar

Andaman endemics

Andaman Crested Serpent Eagle - pic courtesy Pritam Kukilaya

Andaman Woodpecker - pic courtesy Pritam Kukilaya

The Changeable Hawk Eagle at Mamandur

14th August 

820 am

On the forest roads of the Sri Venkateswara National Park, amidst the Red Sanders and Aapta (Bauhinia racemosa) trees, the drongos and bulbuls, we had this amazing sighting.

The Changeable Hawk Eagle (Nisaetus cirrhatus)  fixed us with an unwavering stare

slowly moving its gaze away, proudly displaying its crest and the characteristic streaked chest

readying its talons for take off

before swooping off over us, its yellow eyes glinting menacingly.

At that moment, I was glad I was not a rodent or jungle fowl. Imagine that four-foot wingspan coming down on you from the sky.

Found in south-east Asia and the Indian subcontinent, its been a while since I saw this bird of prey.

Black shouldered kite at Sholinganallur

Photo by Mr Ramanan

Elanus caeruleus 

A beautiful capture by Mr Ramanan, of a black-shouldered kite, seen on a wire at Sholinganallur.    It seems to be fixing Mr Ramanan with a piercing look!

This smaller bird of prey has an interesting habit of hovering, like the pied kingfisher.

On the open plains at Bharatpur, we would regularly see them almost stationery in the sky as they hovered over, looking for small prey like rodents, frogs and lizards.

Carcasses and vultures

15th January 2015 began at Phalodi, and the Demoiselle cranes at Kichan.

It ended rather differently.

"Turn right on the Jeypore highway."
"You have reached your destination."

The electronic GPS lady-with-an-American-accent informed us that we were at our destination - the Jorbeer carcass dumping site.  But we were at the end of a T junction in the middle of nowhere, and quite lost.

We then did our navigation the old-fashioned (and for India the more effective way quite often), rolled down the windows and asked a local trundling along on his bicycle.

We arrived a little too late in the evening, and the sun was already low in the sky.  On the outskirts of Bikaner, we were at this large empty semi-desert acreage, where the city dumps its cattle carcasses.

The air was filled with raptors, as too the ground.

Tractors come and unload the cattle carcasses of the city and the neighbouring towns here.  There are piles of  meat, which are then picked clean by the scavenging birds on duty, increasingly in competition with feral dogs.

The scenery is unattractive, and there is an odour of rotting flesh.  We kept a safe distance from the carcasses, and so we were not overpowered by the stench or the flies.

We kept together, and one of us kept an eye on the dogs, which are aggressive and territorial.


Egyptian vultures, European griffins, Steppe Eagles - all migrants - abound.  We also saw Cinereous vultures.

And flitting in the undergrowth, camouflaged in the brown of the sand were a flock of Isabelline wheatears as well.

Steppe eagles in plenty, as at Taal chapper.

On every shrub, every mound, there seemed to be the Steppe Eagles, as common here, as crows in Madras, it seemed!

A steppe eagle soared by

And the Egyptian vultures sat around, everywehere, roosting communally on top of bushes like this.....

.... circling in the sky, distinctive with their wedge-shaped tails......

...feeding on the carrion, the juvenile blacks and the adult whites.....

....unbothered by the dogs...

Neophron percnopterus - looking like they could do with a good wash to clean themselves!  They are or were seen across the Indian sub continent. 

I read that they feed on feaces to get the carotenoid pigment that gives them those yellow faces, which is a sign of good health.  How gross is that?!

More than the ground, it was the show in the sky that was riveting.

A large Eurasian Griffon came into view, making the Egyptian vultures look small.

 Gyps fulvus - we saw it ride the thermals, gliding effortlessly with its large wing span, its white head and long neck, reminding me of the vultures in Jungle Book.

The rufous brown underwings have a pale banding across.

See the stout bill, and this was probably a juvenile as the bill was greyish.  It looked all grown up and fierce to me though

 These Gyps are also probably affected by diclofenac poisoning, and their numbers are on the decline.

They are probably a resident population, moving to the Himalayas in summer.

See the larger Cinereous

And then came the even larger Cinereous Vulture into view!

Aegypius monachus - this is the largest vulture species, appearing all black in the sky.

They hold their wings quite often in this arched fashion, and have a slow flapping, given their broad wing spans.

And then it was back to the eagles -

Tawny Eagle - with the gape line extending only until the eyes, and not beyond like the "smiling" Steppe eagles.

Another one sat on the ground in the distance.

 A great place for idying vultures is here.

A rib cage picked clean by the scavengers - clear evidence of their role in the natural world.

The light was fast fading, or rather had faded, and the dogs appeared even more menacing, and we decided to leave.

A strange and unattractive place, and I ruminated as we trundled along in the car that I would never have known of this place but for the MNS group.

Across India, there are dumps like this, it seems, where cattle carcasses are dumped after removing their hides.  The fall in vulture populations has caused a serious problem in their disposal.  The diclofenac seems to affect the Gyps vultures more, which could be the reason why the Egyptian vultures seem to be in greater numbers.

Vibhu Prakash of BNHS has documented their decline.

*********

Some others had gone to the camel research centre nearby, and ofcourse Dhruva had to do the last of his disappearing act as he wandered off to buy camel milk from the National Camel centre!!

Sheila's birthday and Shobha and Vijay's wedding anniversary - what an eventful day!  Forgotten havelis at Phalodi, Demoiselle cranes by the thousands at Kichan, mustard fields and khejri trees, vultures and a carcass dump, a bone-rattling drive to Sujangarh, and finally dinner at Rich Garden Sujangarh, which had no garden to speak of!

The next morning, it was another eventful day as we headed to Taal Chapper.

The Indian "Steppes" - eagle visitors at Taal Chhapar

Jan 16th 2015.  As we soaked in the beauty of the Blackbucks on the one hand, we were also awed by the majesty of the soaring Steppe Eagles, as they dotted the grasslands, sitting on rocky outcrops, gliding over the grass and making the territory their own.

I step back into my school geography class and Ms Rohini when I think of the Steppes - those grasslands that once spread across Asia and Europe.  It coexists in my memory along with the nomadic pastoralists and Genghis Khan swooping across the plains

From the lands of the great Khan come these large eagles, swooping down to winter in our own grasslands in north-western India.

By far, they were the most common raptors we saw that day at Taal Chhapar.  Aquila nipalensis.  They eat carrion too, which accounts for the fact that we saw them at the carcass dump the next day as well.

They would take off on sorties every now and then, probably searching for small rodents and partridges.  Their large wingspans were a sight to see.

The characteristic brown and black flight feathers and tail.  This is the largest eagle I have seen so far.

The yellow gape that extends beyond the eye distinguishes it from the Tawny Eagle

The Tawny and Spotted eagles also have this yellow gape, but the extent of it, the shape of the nostrils and mouth are all different.  For our amateur eyes, we would have problems differentiating I am sure, but then we saw only the Steppes, so there was no "idying" confusion.

We almost missed the red collared doves shuffling around next to the road, as we trained our binoculars on the eagles afar. Streptopelia tranquebarica.  My first sighting of them of these reddish-matron doves that are found in fields, gleaning for seed in the undergrowth.

As the light faded, we also saw Harriers.  Couldn't figure out which one this was....

...though this one looked like a juvenile Pied Harrier

We had to leave, and our final sighting was a huge herd of wild boar grunting and scuffling through the grass.  They passed quite close to the eagles who did not seem to care!

A hot dinner awaited at Churu, in the same home where we had lunch, which was so fresh and wholesome that we shamelessly invited ourselves for the night as well!

We met the five daughters of the couple who were our hosts, and it was indeed heartwarming to see such well educated, confident and outgoing girls, where one would least expect it.

I think they were also intrigued by this strange bunch  from the south, with a large smattering of women who were by far more noisy than the men!

Pongal at Goa - on the Cumbarjuem canal

15th January 2013

We packed, left Nature's Nest and headed for the mouth of the Zuari river, from where we were to go on a ferry ride.

It was a hazy morning, and a Brahminy Kite circled lazily overhead before going to rest on one of the buildings.  For some reason it reminded me of the Bosphorus views from Uskudar.  Maybe the network of ferries, and the river economy, maybe the terrace cafes.

We loitered around for a bit,  before we set off in our little ferry, with Mr Kamath as our guide.

Zuari, a tidal river - this I didn't know

I daydreamed as I watched the fishermen in the distance, enveloped in my own silence as desultory snippets of conversation swirled around me.

A goods train crossed the river and snapped me out of my reverie, and yes we needed to answer nature's call before we got on that boat!

We veered off the river into a mangrove-lined canal.  Mr Kamath said this was the Cumbarjuem canal (had never heard of it), and it connected the Zuari with the Mandovi further north.  How amazing!  I came back and checked it out on the map, and sure enough there was this meandering canal between Mandovi in the north and Zuari in the south.

Mandovi is freshwater and Zuari is tidal, so I wonder how it all works.  We saw a couple of lock-like things along the way.  Strangely (but happily), we didn't see much commercial traffic on the river, and as a result saw a LOT of birds!

Kingfishers everywhere, brahminy kites too, parakeets in the trees, cormorants and darters in the water, and greenshanks, curlews and sandpipers of all types at the water's edge.

A terek sandpiper too - all the way from Russia! Large egrets stood stock still as we passed, as did the pond herons and a lone green heron.

But this raptor was what caught our eye!

First up, was this magnificent Osprey, sitting on one of the poles, looking magnificent indeed.  This photo of the fish eating large raptor is taken by Mr Ramanan

So many kinfisher varieties!  This stork-billed gave everyone a lot of poses.  Photo by Mr Ramanan

Strange, but Pongal last year we were at the mangroves as well- at Muthupet.

Photo by Mr Ramanan

Mangroves

Under the bridge and back on the Zuari

Photo by Mr Ramanan.  Peregrine falcon! The fastest member of the animal kingdom!  But there it sat so innocuously, high up, under the bridge.  Sadly, I did not witness its fantastic and legendary swoop - supposedly goes into a dive @380 kms/hr!!  Check out some youtube videos on these birds.

Further down the river, and there were a series of poles each with a tern perched on them, bobbing madly in the tide!

Then we headed back to shore, hungry for more than the puffs we could muster for breakfast!

On to Maina lake.

We drove through the city and little byelanes to come across this picturesque urban lake, filled with ducks!

I gazed at the water lilies, as the whistling teals flew by announcing our presence!

On the other side of the road was this vast expanse of paddy.  A delightful green and I watched the farmers at work in the distnace.

It was very warm by now, midday, and we all headed for lunch, which was pretty disappointing, and then off to the airport making our long way home.