24 Dec 13 - I Thought Punk Died Out At The End Of The 70s

Another early start to get to Chiriya Tapu soon after dawn. The forest birding was as good as the previous morning, but with a handful more cars on the road. When a tuk-tuk appeared & stopped, we expected the usual Indian gorping & greeting of "What is your good name" or "From what country are you coming" etc ad nauseum, but it was Dave Willis who was on an extended trip to the Andamans, along with another Indian birder from SW India. After paying their driver off, we had another couple of pairs of eyes on the road that morning.

Andaman Woodpecker: The star of the morning's birding. I thought the Punk look had ended in the 70s!

Andaman Bulbul: Couldn't resist for photos of this great looking Bulbul

White-headed Starling: I'm sure they want to be Woodpeckers as they were frequently clambering around the trees looking for food

Monitor Lizard sp.: This was about 2 ft long

Just in case you're wondering why some of the photos are cropped: The trees round here get big

Me: With essential forest birding kit of bins, camera & coffee cup

We finally pushed onto the coastal edge, but didn't linger long before finding another woodland patch to look for Andaman Crake. The best thing about looking for Andaman Crakes is your focusing on the ground & not 30 or 40 metres up in the tree tops. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any Crakes.

Collared Kingfisher: One of the few birds on the coastal edge

Forest Wagtail: A shy skulking forest species

Andaman Shama: Always happy to see Shama's. They are very elegant & good songsters & they keep fairly low down

As we were leaving Chiriya Tapu to head back to Port Blair for some food, we bumped into a Violet Cuckoo. This is a miniature Asian Cuckoo that I've not seen for over a decade. It is a difficult bird to see in India, given its limited resident range of the Andamans & Nicobars, as well as being a scarce summer visitor to parts of NE India.

Violet Cuckoo

After a break for lunch, we were back at Chiriya Tapu for the late afternoon. The highlight was our first Andaman Cuckoo Dove.

Andaman Cuckoo Dove: I'm always surprised about how small headed Cuckoo Doves are

Obviously we looked for Owls again given it's dark soon after 17:30.

Oriental (Walden's) Scops Owl

23 Dec 13 - The Early Birder Catches The Boat

The alarm went off at 04:00 (& this is supposed to be a holiday). Just time for a strong coffee before getting to the hotel door for 04:30. The driver showed up 10 minutes late, but we still caught the 05:00 ferry in the half light of dawn. A few minutes later we were driving through lagoons & mangroves, before entering some decent forest at a site called Jirgatna, on the opposite side of the bay to Port Blair. For the rest of the morning, we were birding along a road with lots of birds & a car every 15 minutes or so. Can't think of many places where forest birding from a road has been so pleasant. By the end of the morning we had seen 2/3rds of endemic Andaman birds.

Vikram showing how high this forest is

Long-tailed Parakeet

Andaman Coucal: For once not in a dense tangle of vegetation

Spot-breasted Pied Woodpecker: As with Great Spotted Woodpeckers, this is sexed based upon the extent of red on the head. This is a male

Spot-breasted Pied Woodpecker: The female has no red on the head

Andaman Cuckoo-shrike: Surprisingly the only one we saw. Good job this bird performed well for the camera. The rusty throat indicates this is a 1st Winter bird

Andaman Cuckoo-shrike: Not a sharp picture, but shows the size of prey it eats. This lizard was dispatched pretty fast

Scarlet Minivet: Male. The females have yellow replacing the orange

Andaman Bulbul: Until fairly recently this was lumped with the widespread Black-headed Bulbul. Perhaps the lack of a black head gave them a clue about splitting it

Black-naped Oriole

Andaman Drongo: This is smaller than the superficially similar looking Black Drongo & is strictly a forest species, whereas the larger Black Drongos prefer open & degraded habitats

Andaman Treepie: They seemed to go around in parties with Andaman Drongos. Perhaps they enjoy watching the Andaman Drongos squabbling like these 2 birds

Andaman Butterfly: Saw similar looking Butterflies on other days so presume it's a fairly common species

 

The Port Blair Bay Ferry: Very like a Scottish ferry on the face of it, but when loading/unloading it's a free for all of motorbikes & people trying to get on & off, with only the cars being organised by the crew

The Port Blair Bay Ferry: The jetty was sharply angled making it more tricky to get the car on

Indian House Crow: Ready to steal away on the next boat to Ireland!!!

House Sparrow: No prizes for identifying this one. This is the indicus subspecies