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.

Andaman Day 4 and 5 - Rangat scrub and open forests

Continued from here.  Click here for the previous post. 

Feb 13th 2024 - Our Post lunch wander

The post-lunch session is always one that requires a lot of motivation.  Stomachs full of a good "saapaad", courtesy Anandi meals, day temperatures that were warm and humid and a good inviting bed and nice pillow, all made for what we in the marketing profession would call barriers and de-motivators.

However, our gang of 8 was made of sterner stuff and off we went,  to Sabari forest.  I assumed we were visiting a dense forest and I was looking forward to large trees, lianas and wild orchids.

However, I was initially a bit underwhelmed when we stopped on the side of a road.  There was a little steep lane down which Jabili was searching for a specific endemic.  Which warbler I forget.  The road led to a village - I think Bharatpur - and we were checking the undergrowth on each side.  

I wandered a bit further down the lane, chatting school girls passed me on the way back home and they were not surprised to see me.  Here are some sights from my wander. 

Andaman Mormon - Male.  I just saw this butterfly which looked a little different from what I have seen in Chennai.  We did not have a butterfly person - so it was iNaturalist to the rescue, upon return, when I discovered this was Papilio mayo. 

According to the Wiki page - "The scientific name honours Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, who was assassinated at Port Blair the year before the butterfly was discovered." Oh my goodness, Sekar, this one's for you and your Mayo College buddies.

Common Snowflat - once again identified through iNaturalist - isnt it pretty?  The Skipper butterfly perched on Siam Weed.

A bracket fungi was growing off some dead wood, and the leaf litter was so diverse and colourful.  Everything recycles, gets reused...hmm.

I loved the colours of these leaves.

A Common Cerulean - there were many - perched on a yellow Burweed. I love to see their twitching delicate tails in the binoculars.

A Sponge gourd grew on wooden supports, probably harvested by the residents of Bharatpur.

If this is a Burweed, then it is not native and has probably come in with travellers.  Aster family.

High up in the canopy, I saw my first wild orchid of the trip! Papilionanthe teres - of the Vanda family.  What we pay and buy from the Chennai florists.    

I was very excited by the beauty in the canopy, and was a bit crushed that no one else was.  Oh well.  I think they were a bit disbelieving of my id probably.  😆. I could see the aerial roots as well of this epiphyte.

A Climbing Aroid made a symmetric design on a tree trunk.

The warblers were calling from the undergrowth.  But were frustratingly not in clear sight.  On the electric wires, the doves cooed, long-tailed parakeets flew in and out as did the sunbirds. 

Toothbrush orchids! In the Dendrobium famil, with all the flowers lined up on one side, like a toothbrush.

 

One of my favourite sighting was that of the freckle-breasted woodpecker - a lifer.  We had good sightings via our binoculars, as  they busily went around a horizontal branch searching for their evening tiffin - insects.  These are not seen on the mainland.

Really delightful birds, so well captured by Umesh!

Trees.  Without them no woodpecker, no bulbul, no pigeon, no eagle and yet we don't "see" them.  Like this Papita tree (Pterocymbium tinctorium) - we usually saw a lovely bird on these trees, but didnt bother with the tree.  

Cinnamon vines of the yam family were high up in the canopy.

I still have not figured out what this was.

Mangrove Date Palm Phoenix paludosa - i confused this with Nypa, (which we saw at Dhaninullah) but in this palm, the leaves are smaller and placed at the top. 

Mangrove Fan Palm clumps were in plenty along the roadside, some flowering like this one..

As we strolled along the road, I was struck by this magnificent tree, filled with epiphytes.  Seemed like the familiar Rain Tree, but I could not make out for sure.

And these canopy topping Dipterocarps would stick out every now and then.

As the sun sank, there was a final flurry of bird calls.  A bunch of Adam Treepies flitted into a tree, along with Andaman Drongos and minivets

 Andaman Treepie (Dendrocitta bayleii) looks quite different from its  Mainland counterpart.  This one is more slender I thought, more rusty all over, and the tail is definitely longer.  I loved that little white accent om the wings.

  

Umesh saw this pair of Andaman Bulbuls as well, as the light faded.  

A mandatory chai stop on the way back to the hotel.  This lady was doing bustling business, catering to the requests for black tea, kadak chai, with sugar without sugar, - all with speed and efficiency.  Milk - a scarce commodity on the islands.  ANIIDCO does provide milk, and animal husbandry has started, but milk powder is more the norm than liquid milk.  

If there are more settlers, there will be more cattle needed and that means more forests lost.  Everything is inter-related...my craving for milk in tea/coffee is not good for the forests, sigh!

Sabari forest checklist here.

Feb 14th 2024

It was time to leave Rangat and get back on to that dreaded NH$ for our return journey.  What a sad way to spend Sekar's birthday!  But there were some nice moments, some fun as well.

Downtown Rangat as the day dawned, silhouetting the temple, the church and the cel phone tower!

Our bags were loaded, group photos with Inderjeet were taken - he was very keen on these photos - with the reception, the name board etc, packed breakfast was given, drivers looked fresh and ready.

We were supposed to bird in the nearby scrub looking for more elusive warblers, but the morning was misty and foggy.  So of course what better way to pass the time then have some tea! 

These dogs were on full alert and good behaviour waiting for our biscuits.  We saw them even slurping tea dregs from the tea cups that were disposed!

I enjoyed the dawn, Sekar enjoyed a doze in the car - sleep more precious than nature's beauty at this point!

The "weedy" and scrubby empty plots where we heard the Dusky Warblers, saw them dart between bushes,  2- second views.

More pairs of eyes, more 2-second sightings

I saw a shrike - it was a Philippine Shrike I was informed.  A greyer head differentiates it from the Brown shrike.  The shrike gave us good Darshan, on different stalks, fence and posts.  Water hens too - they basked on a parapet, quite unusually, along with two ladies who were chatting busily, quite unmindful of their clucking.   

I loved this plant - it was growing wild by the roadside, and the flowers were a dramatic pink, with a deeper stamen.  identified via iNaturalist as Caesar Weed on return.  

An Andaman White-headed starling on the wire also gave us a good Darshan - and Sekar could click this right while sitting in the car, so cooperative a model was it.  yellow legs, pale bill and greyish feathers on ack all seen.  We saw these birds in plenty.

It was 7am now, and time to head out from Rangat.  We settled in to our seats, mentally girding ourselves for the rough ride ahead.    Past the roundabout with SC Bose, so important and ubiquitous in the Andaman Islands.    Field and houses drifted by our windows as we got out of town.

Our Coucal moment

Mainland coucals always skulk, inside tree canopies and are most often well hidden, more heard than seen.  Not so the Islander.

Just as we were exiting Rangat, we ground to a halt as this Andaman Coucal sat by the roadside, right atop a Mexican Sunflower plant, spreading its feathers and sunning.  It had opted this strange posture, as if it wanted every inner feather to get some sun!

We also saw an Andaman Crested Serpent Eagle - well some of us did.

A glimpse of the forests abutting NH4.

Somehow the journey back seemed less tortuous - it is all a state of mind.  😁

A stop at Uttara jetty tea around 9 am, and we had our breakfast of sandwiches, boiled egg, and we found these bananas at the store rather interesting.  

Of course we had chai, no need to ask.  Then it was back on the road again, and this time we did not stop at Humphrey's bridge over the Creek.

We had a stop at Sundargarh village, a little before Baratang.  Our driver had lost his aged grandma, and he wanted to pay his respects.  We realised that both the boys are related.  The family was waiting for these two, to carry the grandma's coffin for burial.  The whole village had showed up to pay their respects.  people were walking in from everywhere.

The Sundargarh area was dry and not wooded.  There were raptors in the sky up above, soaring.  We then set out again from there in about half an hour.

I asked our driver about his family and his life.  I am mortified to say I have forgotten his name.  The younger driver was Ojas, what was our driver's name?  he said he had never been to the mainland, and had no desire to, either.  (Smart!  I thought to myself).  He seemed content with his life, happy to have family in every village, north to south of Andamans!  Wherever he went with his car, his guests, he would find someone he knew.  He was confident, yet calm.

Our guide Jabili - she had been to the mainland to study but had returned - she loved the life in Andamans.  Even Madhuri from ANET mentioned that this is where she belonged.  This complete lack of need for "more" was a revelation to me.

We reached Baratang at around 11:10, just in time for the 1130 ferry.  Enough time to be "blessed" by the Large Billed Crow (Eastern)  which meant I had to use the public toilet, which I discovered were clean!!  (More about the large Billed Crow and the trouble it caused in my next post).

This time, the cars and us took the ferry together, across the Middle Strait.  It is so beautiful, I don't see myself ever tiring of the view - the waters, the forest, the sky - and the White Bellied Sea Eagle!

The white-bellied sea eagle (Icthyophaga leucogaster) - another Andaman sight I will not tire off.  All along our ferry ride, one eagle circled the straits.  As I watched, I counted - 8 wing flaps, glide, bank, 3 flaps, soar some more, another 8 flaps and glide some more...and so it went in a large circle, and then finally and effortless glide to the tallest tree where it perched itself.

We disembarked at 1150, and our cars joined the long and orderly queue of vehicles.  There were also vehicles parked in the parking lot, waiting for tourists to return.  We expected to catch the 1230 Jarawa Reserve crossing.

We were free to wander around Middle Strait but were told no photographing of the Jarawas.  We did see a few of them.  It was low tide, and the waters in the Strait were low enough for a couple of men to be wading in the waters - no crocodile concerns, I wondered.  We sawn fishing boat, and as we were leaving, we saw a mother and son on one side of the road trying to cross to the other side of the reserve.  

A large banyan tree stood just before the checkpoint where we could sit around, away from the strong sun.   


.

We went back to our vehicles, and it was time for the convoy to move. Our driver waited patiently - the buses went first, then the other line of cars, and then ours.  The car in from of ours waited, as one of the cars from the parking lot needed to get in.

I marvelled at the complete lack of road rage and impatience.  Why are we so impatient in Chennai?  Why does a 10 second delay make us behave so badly and rudely? Honestly, we Mainlanders were tutting and restless, itching to get ahead, while our driver sat patiently and then followed the car in the front.

Back through the forests, more conversations on the Jarawas, tribes, development, pensive thoughts, some snoozing and in a couple of hours we were out at Jirkatang and heading to  Port Blair.

Lunch?  Ah now that was a problem.  All those little shacks lining the road at Jirkatang, turns out they are open only for breakfast!  They were all shut, except one that required a bit of a walk back and another with only Cuppa Noodles!  So, we went in to the nearest shack - had Cuppa Noodles, along with some hot vadais and bajjis.  I was so busy stuffing my face, I did not take any pictures!  Jabili and the drivers did not care for this "junky" option - and went off to the far away place and had a proper meal, or at least so they said.

The day was still young - more experiences awaited - the Starling show, Teals and birthday celebrations in the next post.