Birding in the Andaman islands: lifers galore

A group of jewel like dots, green with a fringe of brown sand, appeared out of the mist as I awoke from the slumber induced by the early morning flight to Port Blair and looked out of the window of the plane. We were on a birding trip to the Andamans: here awaited a unique admixture of South East Asian species that are not found on the mainland and endemic species that have evolved in isolation. We hoped to to see the twenty or so endemic species and a few more rarities difficult to see elsewhere.

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  A collared kingfisher surveys the beach at Chidiyatapu

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  Pacific reef egret

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  Brown shrike

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  Chestnut-headed bee-eater

Birders propose but weather will dispose: the first day at Sippighat wetland was wet all over. We still birded from the car and were rewarded by sightings of the long-toed stint and red-throated pipit, which seemed to revel in the rain; a solitary small pratincole was a new record for the islands. Pacific golden plovers and snipes were ubiquitous on the ground as were the magnificent white bellied sea eagles swooping overhead. When the sun finally allowed us to get our boots muddy, off we trooped into the wetland. Flocks of lesser whistling ducks created a whistling orchestra as they took off in unison. You would think bitterns are shy skulkers and impossible to spot, but the yellow bittern posed unabashed for photos. A handful of cotton pygmy geese broke the monopoly the common moorhens and whistling ducks had over the wetland.

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  Small pratincole by PB Balaji

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  Long toed stint

  

  Red-throated pipit
  

  

  Pacific golden plover
  

  
  

  
  

  

  Yellow bittern
  

  

  Whimbrel

Next was Garacharma wetland where seemingly inconsequential swiftlets were circling overhead. Some don't have a pale belly like the glossy bellied swiftlet, pointed out Nikhil, our group leader: it was the edible nest swiftlet, whose nests have unfortunately been widely harvested. As the sun sets early in this part of the world, we set off owling at Chidiyatapu. Hawk owls or boobooks are owls that resemble hawks: Hume's obliged us with good sightings on three occasions although the Andaman hawk owl took off instantly when we saw it.

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  Hume's hawk owl (boobook)

Chidiyatapu or “bird island" was our destination the next morning as its tropical evergreen and deciduous reserve forest is the home to more than 120 species. There we encountered a steady procession of ”Andams endems”: woodpecker, treepie, drongo, bulbul, coucal, serpent eagle. The Andaman woodpecker, large and black, hopped gracefully from trunk to trunk. The Botanical Garden at Chidiyatapu, home to some magnificent old behemoth like trees, yielded close ups of the freckle-breasted woodpecker, long tailed parakeets and white headed starlings. A blue-eared kingfisher, a rare forest dweller, was photographed close up.

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  Andaman coucal

  

  Andaman drongo
  

  

  Freckle-breasted woodpecker

  

  Andaman bulbul by Nikhil Bhopale
  

  

  Long-tailed parakeet
  

  

  White-headed starling
  

  

  Blue-eared kingfisher

A stroll on Badabalu beach at Chidiyatapu did not yield the white breasted woodswallows we were after, but so what? Turquoise sea, lullaby like waves and blue sky on the uninhabited beach was something we weren’t going to complain about as we sprawled on the sand with a lazy eye on the white bellied sea eagles and needletails circulating overhead. A photo of the white-throated needletail was actually a new record for the Andamans, and a Himalayan cuckoo showed us how far it had migrated. We were however rapidly and literally brought down to earth by the mudbath that was the result of pushing our groaning vehicles uphill through the slushy mud road. Any complaints were quickly drowned out by whoops of delight when our guide Shakti showed us the Oriental scops owl within a minute of hearing its call!

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  Bababalu beach

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  Typical saltwater crocodile habitat, where a stream meets the sea
  

  

  Himalayan cuckoo by Nikhil Bhopale

White-throated needletail by PB Balaji

We took a ferry the next morning to Bamboo Flat jetty and headed to Shoal Bay where we started off with a sighting of 25-30 Andaman teals. This increasingly threatened endemic species, whose freshwater pool habitats have come under increasing threat by so called development, is down to an estimated 1500 remaining individuals. Birding at Kalatang forest was a thrilling rapid fire exposure to new species with the constant metallic cackle of the Andaman drongo as the background orchestra. The Andaman shama posed unhurried for us as did other endemics such as the Andaman green pigeon, Andaman flowerpecker and bar-bellied cuckooshrike. The piercing whistle of the mangrove whistler preceded its stepping out of its nearby mangrove habitat almost as if to oblige us. That delicate tropical canopy specialist,  the black baza, was greedily photographed at close range.A productive morning!

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  Andaman shama by Nikhil Bhopale

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  Black baza

Fairy bluebird by Nikhil Bhopale

Mangrove whistler by Nikhil Bhopale

Back in the nearby wetland were two rarer sandpipers, curlew and broad billed, and our triumphant identification of the red-necked stint was punctured by the realization that the bird in non breeding plumage closely resembles the little stint. In general the Indian military doesn’t welcome anything Chinese here, but an exception was the Chinese egret, with a nuchal crest and distinctly lighter bill and legs than the little egret: Shakti says only two birds are here! We rounded off the day with an exercise in watching the Andaman nightjar: walk to its habitat, wait for sunset, listen for its chuck-chuck-chuck call, wait for it to settle down nearby, and then turn on the flashlight triumphantly!

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  Chinese egret

  

  Chinese pond heron: identified by absence of stripes in the midline of neck and breast

We headed off to a wetland the next morning where reed warblers were the pre-breakfast menu: I must say they are somewhat bigger and easier to identify than your arboreal ones. The smaller black-browed reed warbler looked like it had eyebrow liner on and was easy to pick, but differentiating the clamorous from the Oriental reed warbler wasn’t. If reed warblers weren’t your cup of tea, you could just gaze at and photograph the 20 or so Andaman teals languorously feeding in the morning sunlight. In the unlikely event of your getting bored with this peaceful monotony, you could take a break to see a blue-eared kingfisher here or a ruddy-breasted crake there.

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  The endangered Andaman teals
  

  

  Black-browed reed warbler
  

  

  Clamorous reed-warbler

In the afternoon it was getting boring and hot. Shakti had parked us on a grassy bank near a large tree bordering a wetland within Port Blair. Are we here to watch the mynas and crows, we wondered? Just wait, the Daurian starlings, a South East Asian vagrant to the subcontinent will come to roost for sure, he said. And like a flight arriving on time, a bunch of them with pale heads and blue-black wings, banked and swirled before settling down in front of us. Apparently they have decided to obtain regular visas to the Andamans for the last few years: we were happy to stamp their passports.

Daurian starling

All is definitely not hunky-dory in this island paradise. Rampant wetland filling and deforestation in the name if development was taking place in front of us, and Port Blair and its environs will surely lose its birding appeal in the years to come. One doesn’t see any succour for the environment or birdlife from an increasingly commercial administration, intent on unsustainable tourism and development at an alarming rate.

That was 23 lifers for me. So what are you waiting for, before the wetlands and the birds go forever? The Andamans are just a flight away!