Andamans Day 5 - The Andaman teals, and Daurian Starling show and other sidelights

 Continued from here.  

Feb 14th 2024 evening

There was no rest for the sleepy.  In order to maximise daylight hours and save time, we were stopping at Sippighat and Junglighat before calling it a day.

Many new sights awaited.  Sippighat looked very different from the last time we were here.  The inundation of Sippighat and the Tsunami effect was still evident in 2017, but not any more.  Now the whole landscape looked like a series of ponds,  on either side of the road.

We crossed Ograbhaj wetlands, but did not stop as there was not much activity here.  Jabili scanned the wetlands, and then we moved on.

It was 330 in the afternoon, the sun was doing its thing - bringing more warmth and sunshine than we wanted - and we saw all these little brown dots in the water.  So, sun or no sun we had to investigate if these were the endemic Andaman Teals.

The Andaman Teals of Sippighat

Yes they were! In the hundreds - in the reeds and in the water,   

on the posts,

they were splashing about, cooling off by having regular dunks

spreading their wings in the water, preening,

swimming around, and

flying from one part of the lake to the other.  

It was a joy to watch, some were busy, others meditated - very different tactics to stay cool.  
Andaman Teals are gregarious and the only duck endemic to Andamans.

And, they all had different levels of white - some only the white eyering, others with full white heads

We saw some Lesser Whistling Ducks too, but no other ducks on this trip.  

We had to move on to Junglighat, as Jabili wanted us to be there by 430 for the sunset show of the Starlings.

So off we went.

The Starling show at Junglighat

This is where we came to see the Starlings.  Very uninspiring indeed - low tide exposing the detritus of us humans - junked boats, plastic cans of various colours, old tires, discarded shoes and much more.  

We were on the opposite side of the Junglighat jetty.  Through my binoculars, the white ship in the background to the left - had the word "Bar" on a name board.  I idly wondered if it was functioning.  

A Whimbrel foraged among the cans, its long down-turned beak very evident.

Scan further right, and there were healthy and plentiful mangrove groves.  The cattle egrets were assembled on one bush in the foreground.

We waited on the embankment next to the mangroves, a little clearing.  Where we stood, there was a cricket net to the left, with 3 young children playing catch.  A banyan tree behind had a bunch of seated elders who eyed us with some curiosity.  

As we waited, we passed the time seeing the other birds - mynas by the dozens flew back and forth, a couple of white throated kingfishers streaked across, Plume-toed swiftlets zipped around in the air, sandpipers bobbed and hurried in the mud, while the reef herons stood stock still.

There were plenty of crows all around.  House crows with grey necks, we concluded, not the Large Billed.  

(I learnt that it is not just Large Billed Crow anymore - there is Eastern Jungle Crow Corvus levaillantii and Indian Jungle Crow Corvus culminatus found in Chennai, and the Corvus macrorhynchos of north India and rest of Asia.) And so, the black crows with large bills we were seeing in Andamans were the  Eastern Jungle Crow.  I think.  I will await clarifications from the others.

In the midst of the house crows that we were seeing Umesh said there were also Jungle Crows, which neither me nor the others had noticed.  Now Srinivas said he was not seeing any Jungle, only House.  And asked Umesh to show him a Jungle, and then Umesh snapped back you had to see for yourself and he cannot be pointing out crows!! 😀. And so ensued the" Crow Quarrel" which led to Umesh and Srinivas having a Cold War like two schoolboys, and the rest of us a trifle amused but also wary of the clashing chieftains.  The subject of crows was not mentioned on the remainder of the trip I think, and we were saved by the arrival of the Daurians!

Moral - Shouldn't bird when hungry and/or tired.  

 

The Daurian Murmuration

Suddenly, they were there, where did they come from?!  

Suresh summarises in his Insta post - 

"When Jabili Rao, our knowledgeable Bird Guide in the Andamans, was rushing us to reach a particular spot by 4.30pm, so as not to miss a murmuration, I was quite excited.

The location was not too far from our hotel, and by a Ferry landing, in Port Blair. It was low tide, and the muddy flats looked rather like our own Pallikaranai marsh, which the GCC uses as a garbage dump.

We were going to see Daurian Starlings (purple-backed starlings), coming to roost. The birds arrived as expected, and it was fascinating to watch them swarm, wheeling and turning, without any collisions! They reminded me of a squadron of WW2 fighter planes.

They were very quick, and despite their numbers, it wasn't so easy to get a fix on, and follow them, with our long telephoto lenses. Absolutely beautiful!

I learnt that they were not quite as numerous this time around. Nevertheless, it was a sight to behold as they made their very rapid, aerial sorties, before plunging into the mangroves, and disappearing without any trace! A little later I saw common mynahs, and house sparrows do much the same - plunging into the mangroves, as if they were a volley of arrows - I wonder if it is a trick to prevent predators from knowing their exact roosting spots."

With a photo bombing crow, oops.  Not so densely packed, when you see like this.

 

That "V" on the back, this is the way to id the Daurian from the other starlings, I learnt.

They are also called Purple-backed starlings - but I saw them as more brown than any other colour.  The females are more brown.

The delight that technology brings - zoom, freeze, capture for eternity.

Witnessing a murmuration - even a small one like this - filled me with mystery and awe.  Hundreds of wingbeats and soft class, a murmuration does make.   Is there some mental mind reading going on here?  How do birds know when to turn, when to dive and who is the leader?

Obviously I am not the first one asking these questions.  And I found these interesting answers.

The "How" answer

https://animals.howstuffworks.com/birds/starling-murmurations.htm

In 2013, a mechanical and aerospace engineer and her team from Princeton collaborated with physicists in Italy to study murmurations. "In a flock with 1,200 birds, it is clear that not every bird will be able to keep track of the other 1,199 birds," Naomi Leonard, the Princeton engineer, said back then, "so an important question is 'Who is keeping track of whom?'"

The Italian physicists used more than 400 photos from several videos to find out, plotting the position and speed of birds as they flocked. From that, they built a mathematical model that identified the optimal number of flock-mates for each bird to track.

Turns out the magic number is seven: Each bird keeps tabs on its seven closest neighbors and ignores all else. Considering all these little groups of seven touch on other individuals and groups of seven, twists and turns quickly spread.

"Birds have a much higher temporal resolution than we do," says Pesendorfer, meaning that birds take in certain information around them and process it much more quickly than humans. "They see much faster than we do."

When do they form?

https://www.lancswt.org.uk/blog/charlotte-varela/starling-murmuration-facts

Murmurations always form over the birds’ communal roosting site. As the number of starlings reaches its peak and the last of the daylight begins to fade, an unspoken signal seems to tell the group to funnel towards the ground with one last sweeping motion and calming whoosh of wings. Roosts can be anything from a reedbed to a seaside pier where the group can huddle together for warmth and chatter about the best feeding grounds.

But, why??

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/animals/birds/starling-murmurations/

There’s safety in numbers. It’s much harder for predators like the speedy peregrine falcon to single out a particular bird when they’re all flying together.

Starlings also gather together to keep warm and exchange important information – keeping up connections is key when you’re a bird!

There is a romance and joy that birds bring to the experience of the outdoors.

Finally at our hotel for the next two nights!  Our rooms were at a lower floor than the lobby, and the restaurant was one floor below the rooms.  I would forget if I had to go up or go down, at times.  

This was the view towards the rear of the building, through the window in the corridor.

Our room had interesting coloured lights for decor, but otherwise, it was nice and comfortable, and you can see the room here.  

A further surprise awaited Sekar - as a birthday cake was organised by Umesh via Jabili.  It was quite sinful, and even tempted Desi who doesn't eat cakes to have a go!  Desi was very systematic in cutting as well.  I loved the happy birthday marching song that the six men mustered for Sekar!  We kept away a bit for the drivers and Jabili who couldn't stay.

Sekar and I went off for dinner to Seafood Delights Andaman.  We hopped into an auto who took us there for 35Rs.  We had overlooked that it was Valentine's Day, and the restaurant was busy!  It is on the second floor with a nice airy feel to it.  The head waiter asked us if we would share a table, and we said why not.  At the other end of the six seater were a young couple with a child, and they left soon.  We had a mustard fish and some rotis if I remember right and some interesting soup.  It was nice to people watch.  These were not tourists, many were Islanders, familiar with the place and the menu and the staff.  There was a nice vibe to it.

Our return was a bit of a comic adventure with our driver not knowing where our hotel was, Google Maps kept rerouting since he was quick in turning where he should not turn, we came up some steep incline and through some private estate and finally arrived.  At which point he said, "Oh you should have said Haddo area, I would have known!"  

And so ended a super long day with many moments of wonder, some comedy and a whole lot of fun.

Ebird Checklist for the second half of 14th.