Andaman Diary Day 1 - Burmanallah beach and beyond

 Continued from here.

Feb 10th 2024

Post lunch, we piled into the cars and picked up our birder guide Jabili Rao.  She is a young birder from the Andaman.  I wonder now, what first impression we made on her.  One group of seniors, all of us perhaps twice her age! Or maybe she's used to it, since many seniors love to bird and love to photograph with their respective bazookas.

Off we went to Burmanullah beach, with Jabili in our car, along with Umesh, Srinivas, Sekar and me.  Umesh was focussed with target species list and locations.  I was busy looking out of the window and exclaiming at the views!

 

 Driving along Burmanullah coast.  Click here.

We stopped, to admire and photograph the Pacific Reef Heron, and oh there was a Collared kingfisher on the line.

Pacific Reef heron - Egretta sacra -  I love their salty grey colours, and how well they camouflaged with the rocks.

Pacific Reef heron - we saw them nesting at the top of the Chidiya Tapu cliffs last time as well.

This Photo by Desigan.  There were several on the beach, here and there, walking around with usual egret slow-motion intent.

In order to confuse matters, there is a "white morph", which looks like the Little Egrets, except they have quite a thick bill, greenish legs and a little squatter.  Why would they display this dimorphism?  And can the two morphs inter-breed - and will you get pied coloured variants then?  Seems not, but why not?

As I pondered these deep "existential" questions, the others were more gainfully occupied.

I found a piece of dead coral in the grasses.

There were crabs and mudskippers in the tidal pools at the edge.  If I am not mistaken this is a Mottled Lightfoot Crab. (Grapsus albolineatus) a coral-dwelling crab.

There were people wandering the shores collecting crabs as well.  A common sandpiper landed on a rock nearby.  

And this Collared Kingfisher also had found a crab.  Photo by Desigan.  

I marvelled at the towering trees and the winding lianas.

A red-collared dove sunbathed.

The hunt for the  Amur Stonechat (Stejneger's Stonechat) Saxicola stejnegeri 

We veered off the tar road and stopped before a little footbridge over a rivulet and entered what looked like  fallow and overgrown agricultural land.  We were tracking the Stejneger's Stonechat - a target species for our trip, I was told.  It is a species seen in east Asia - but not in mainland India, only in Andamans.  It breeds somewhere up in Siberia, and comes down to winter in the Andamans.  (In itself, that fact renders the bird magical!)

It was a subspecies of Common Stonechat, and now it has been separated after genetic testing.  And Stejneger was Nordic Steineger and decided he liked Stejneger better, went off to the Smithsonian and this little stonechat we were trying to see was named after him and now the common name has changed.  

Jabili warned us that it was very shy, and we were to be very quiet.  A farmer passed us in the opposite direction, and airily said oh you should come in the mornings for the birds.  It was close to sunset, and the air was filled with bird call.  Now and then one faint zitting cisticola-like call was heard, which was the Stonechat I believe.  A flash here, a sudden appearance there.  The photographers were frustrated.  "See, near the fence, that pole!", "Which pole, there are so many" - came the retort.  ""Arre, that short one, 12 o'clock." "The one below the tree with green leaves?" "All the trees have green leaves!"  Such was the conversation.  Srinivas' 6ft plus visual perspective quite different from Umesh's did not help matters.  I wonder if they did manage to photograph the bird.

In the midst of all of this, for a change, I actually spotted the said pole and saw the bird quite clearly with my 10x binoculars for about 5 seconds, before it vanished into the undergrowth again! I registered a chestnut brown,  "little brown job", with a little darker tail.  This was the female.  

Desigan took this great picture - how he managed in the midst of all the flitting and the instructions, one never knows!

Anyways, I was happy, kind of thrilled to catch this little messenger from Siberia.  We did not see the male.   I wandered on to see the other sights of the scrub.

There were a whole bunch of goats, feeding quite blissfully and happily, unmindful and uncurious about us. 

I think this is Simpleleaf Chaste tree - a Vitex

And this false ironwort, we see in our city undergrowth as well.  

There were very few butterflies for some reason, but many a dragonfly, including this Crimson Marsh Glider

We retraced our steps across the stream, and the sun gave the leaves such a lovely translucence.  I wonder if this is Macaranga peltata - the parasol tree - the leaf arrangement seemed that way.  It could be.

Back into the cars, and we went up along the road to Chidiyatapu.  The scenery changed, as tall trees sped by on either side.

Stop!  was the cry from Jabili - and we saw the Andaman woodpecker! (Dryocopus hodgei) silhouetted by the evening sun, high up on the tree stump.

Photo by Desigan.  It was a beautiful 15-20 minutes, as we watched it make its way up the stump, its red head giving it a crown of fire almost.  

What a stunning bird!  We saw it a couple more times across the week, and each time it was a joy to watch.  The bird is in on the IUCN "Vulnerable" list, threatened by loss of habitat.

"Little is recorded about the behaviour of the Andaman woodpecker. It lives in pairs, but also associates in small flocks. It forages on large trunks and branches, but has also been recorded foraging on the ground for ants. It has been recorded breeding between January and March, and breeds in a nest hole 6–14 m (20–46 ft) off the forest floor, in a dead tree. Two eggs are laid" - Wikipedia

We made our way back to the Chidiyatapu beach shacks for some welcome chai.  We fell upon the vadais and bajjis and ordered strong chai from the Tamil tea-shop owner who did not waste time on small talk, as the tourists ebbed and flowed like the tide through his shop.  

We saw foreigners, backpackers, middle-aged  Indians from the north, scuba divers packing up for the day, and even a group of trainees from NIOT.  

As we finished our tea...the sky was even more magical.

One more surprise by the roadside.  Andaman Coucal!  What a show we had.  Quite bold, and unlike its mainland counterpart.  It didn't seem to be bothered by us at all.  

The fawn brown feathers were displayed, this way and that.  The head is a duller colour.  The Coucal was busy foraging among the leaves.  I did not see any berries, it was probably on the hunt for insects.  The foliage was a mix of short shrubby bushes.  I could not identify from this.

The crickets and other night insects were out as the light  faded.  Some went off with Jabili to search for the owls, whilst some of us just enjoyed the night sounds around.

This cat moved from one side of the road to the next, listening to the night sounds - didn't waste time on me, but seemed intent as though listening for a particular sound.  Maybe he/she was off on a night hunt.  I did not see too many stray cats on our trip, but Port Blair was full of stray dogs, like any other Indian city.

Back to Shreesh for the night, it was good to have a shower and get out of our sweaty clothes - the humidity was high - and come down and wait for our dinner.  It was lovely to meet Madhuri as well - an "Islander", who works at ANET, and was a friend of Umesh.  She spoke about the road to Rangat being bad - and how her sister preferred to go by ferry, a conversation that made more sense when we did embark a couple of days later to Rangat!

These interesting lampshades were in our corridor, and I noticed them as we went off for the night.

It was a 5am start the next day, and I was much excited - we were to take a ferry and cross a strait and go off to Kalatang!

*******

My Ebird checklist here.  

Lifers of the day

• Plume-toed Swiftlets - Andaman special - not in mainland India.  (Supposedly has a tuft of feathers near the rear toe - which I never saw, but shall assume in good faith that it is present)
• Brown-backed Needletail
• Amur Stonechat

Swiftlets and larger Needletails were zooming around above.  The Swiftlets had white bellies and the Needletails - like this one on Umesh's camera display - were dark brown underneath.