The birds we saw in Bhitarkanika

We were in Bhitarkanika National Park on 19 and 20 March. Everyone said that it was pretty late in the season and our sightings would be minimal. It was true that most of the winter migrants had left. Still the area is so rich in bird life that in three outings in the small area between Khola and Dangamal villages we saw eighty two species. Eighty one of them are listed here. The one I haven’t yet been able to identify is the slate and red bird in the photo below.

Contrary to the advise of some experienced birdwatchers, I’d expected this. My confidence was based on the comprehensive checklist published a decade ago which was a result of G.V. Gopi’s thesis work. This work listed a very large number of endemic species. Gopi put me in touch with the people whom he met during his field work, and that helped us enormously.

We had several lifers (marked in bold) and saw a few of the species which are globally threatened (marked with a star). Some of the birds I have written about in other posts; they are linked. Interestingly, every species we saw is included in Gopi’s checklist!

1. Little Cormorant: Phalacrocorax niger
2. * Darter: Anhinga melanogaster
3. Little Egret: Egretta garzetta
4. Purple Heron: Ardea purpurea
5. Large Egret: Casmerodius albus
6. Median Egret: Mesophoyx intermedia
7. Cattle Egret: Bulbulcus ibis
8. Indian Pond Heron: Ardeola grayii
9. Striated heron: Butorides striatus (formerly Little Green Heron)
10. Asian Openbilled Stork: Anasomus oscitans
11. * Lesser Adjutant Stork: Leptopilus javanicus
12. Lesser Whistling-duck: Dendrocygna javanica
13. White-bellied Sea-eagle: Heliaeetus leucogaster
14. Short-toed Snake-eagle: Circaetus gallicus
15. Red Jungle Fowl: Gallus gallus
16. Slaty-breasted Rail: Gallialus striatus (formerly Blue-breasted Rail)
17. White-breasted Waterhen: Amaurornis phoenucurus
18. Bronze-winged Jacana: Metopidius indicus
19. Pacific Golden Plover: Pluvialis fulva
20. Kentish Plover: Charadrius alexandrinus
21. Lesser Sand Plover: Charadrius mongolus
22. Red-wattled Lapwing: Vanellus indicus
23. Whimbrel: Numenius phaeopus
24. Spotted Redshank: Tringa erythropus
25. Common Redshank: Tringa tetanus
26. Marsh Sandpiper: Tringa stagnatilis
27. Green Sandpiper: Tringa ochropus
28. Wood Sandpiper: Tringa glareola
29. Terek’s Sandpiper: Tringa terek
30. Common Sandpiper: Tringa hypoleucos
31. Little Stint: Calidris minuta
32. Black-winged Stilt: Himantopus himantopus
33. Blue Rock Pigeon: Columba livia
34. Spotted Dove: Streptopilia chinensis
35. Eurasian Collared Dove: Streptopilia decaocto
36. Emerald Dove: Cahlcophaps indica
37. Orange-breasted Green Pigeon: Treron bicincta
38. Rose-ringed Parakeet: Psittacula krameri
39. Indian cuckoo: Cuculus micropterus
40. Large Green-billed Malkoha: Phaenicophaeus viridirostris
41. Greater Coucal: Centropus sinensis
42. Spotted Owlet: Athene brama
43. House Swift: Apus affinis
44. Small Blue Kingfisher: Alcedo atthis
45. Lesser Pied Kingfisher: Ceryle rudis
46. Stork-billed Kingfisher: Halcyon capensis
47. * Brown-winged Kingfisher: Halcyon amauroptera
48. White-breasted Kingfisher: Halcyon smyrnensis
49. Black-capped Kingfisher: Halcyon pileata
50. Collared Kingfisher: Todiramphus chloris
51. Green Bee-eater: Merops orientalis (formerly Small bee eater)
52. Chestnut-headed Bee-eater: Merops leschenaulti
53. Common Hoopoe: Upupa epops
54. Indian Grey Hornbill: Ocyceros birostris
55. Coppersmith Barbet: Megalaima haemacephala
56. Grey-headed Woodpecker: Picus canus (formerly Black-naped Green Woodpecker)
57. Lesser Goldenback Woodpecker: Dinopium benghalense
58. * Mangrove Pitta: Pitta megarhyncha
59. Common swallow: Hiruno rustica
60. Yellow Wagtail: Motacilla flava
61. Red-whiskered Bulbul: Pycnonotus jocosus
62. Red-vented Bulbul: Pycnonotus cafer
63. Common Iora: Aegithina tiphia
64. Oriental Magpie Robin: Copsychus saularis
65. Black Redstart: Phoenicurus ochruros
66. Jungle Babbler: Turdoides striatus
67. Pin-striped Tit Babbler: Macronous gularis (formerly Yellow-breasted Babbler)
68. Red-capped Babbler: Timalia pileata
69. Yellow-bellied Prinia: Prinia flaviventris
70. Purple-rumped Sunbird: Nectarina zeylonica
71. Purple Sunbird: Nectarina asiatica
72. House Sparrow: Passer domesticus
73. Asian Pied Starling: Sturnus contra
74. Chestnut-tailed Starling: Sturnus malabaricus (formerly Grey-headed Starling)
75. Common Myna: Acridotheres tristis
76. Jungle Myna: Acridotheres fuscus
77. Black-headed Oriole: Oriolus xanthornus
78. Black Drongo: Dicrurus macrocerus
79. Rufous Treepie : Dendrocitta vagabunda (formerly Indian Treepie)
80. Eastern Jungle Crow: Corvus macrorhynchos
81. Common Crow: Corvus splendens

The list leaves out birds which we heard but did not see. These include not only the ubiquitous Indian Koel and the Common Hawk-Cuckoo (more widely known as the Brain Fever bird, due to its call), but also a couple of owls and a nightjar.

Bhitarkanika has several avian habitats. The area that we visited (coloured red in the map here) is reputed to be best for kingfishers and the pitta. Closer to the sea one should see the gulls and terns which we missed completely. There are also multiple viewing season. The time we visited is the leanest. Soon after the end of the monsoon one should be able to see herons nesting. The winter months will bring in the migrants, so loved by bird watchers in India. All this is in addition to the views of saltwater crocodiles, sea turtles and monitor lizards which this place is famous for.

I end this post with a mention of the most unlikely sight we saw: a monitor lizard being harried by a flock of Green Bee-eaters. The monitor lizard was probably interrupted in its search for eggs in the nests which the Bee-eaters build on the ground. These birds do not usually flock. They came together to harry the lizard, and successfully drove it away. I was so taken up by the events that I forgot I had a camera. You see wonderful things when you are in a forest.

Clades of Kingfishers

After reaching the Bhitarkanika National Park, we learnt that the brown-winged kingfisher is called the king of the forest. It was abundant. The flash of its orange and blue colouration easily visible, and often, in the green of the mangrove forest. This was one of the seven species of kingfishers we saw in a day.

So many species gave me some pause. How did they evolve? How are they connected? The current understanding of the evolution of kingfishers is that they probably radiated from southern Asia, speciating rapidly as they filled new niches in Australia and the Pacific islands. The Americas are likely to have been populated through two independent migrations from the Old World landmass. Studies are incomplete, and especially in the biogeographic ranges of Asia and India there is much that remains to be discovered.

There are three major clades of Kingfishers: Alcedininae (river kingfishers), Halcyoninae (tree kingfishers), and Cerylinae (water kingfishers). All three are present in Bhitarkanika national park. As far as we can tell today, the river kingfishers diverged from the base of the evolutionary tree. The branching between the other two clades came later. The small blue kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), the white-breasted kingfisher and the pied kingfisher, representatives of the three clades are widespread in India. Somehow I didn’t have a good photo of pied kingfishers before, and I managed to get a fairly good one on this trip (below).

Here are the seven species we saw, listed in the three clades. The name in italics is the genus to which the different species belong.

• River kingfishers (Alcedininae):
  • Alcedo: Small blue kingfisher
• Tree kingfishers (Halcyoninae):
  • Halcyon: White-breasted kingfisher, Brown-winged kingfisher, Stork-billed kingfisher, Black-capped kingfisher
  • Todiramphus: Collared kingfisher
• Water kingfishers (Cerylinae):
  • Ceryle: Lesser pied kingfisher

We’d seen stork billed kingfishers during our trip to Andaman in December. They did not seem to be particularly common there. They seemed to be even more rare here. We saw one briefly sitting with a pair of brown-winged kingfishers. They have similar bright orange coloration, with long red beaks, and it takes a moment to realize that the stork billed does not have a brown wing. I did not get a photo here at all. The ruddy kingfisher is seldom spotted here. One of the cooks at the hotel we stayed in was very interested in birds, and kept asking us whether we’d seen this. He told us that he has never managed to spot it. This agrees with Gopi’s checklist, which states that it is a vagrant. We never saw one.

I’d first seen the collared kingfisher in Andaman. They are quite common here, and I managed to get a better photo than I’d got in December (above). It took me some time to spot the black-capped kingfisher. Our boatman, Amar, kept pointing them out to us, and I couldn’t see them at all for a while. Then I realized that they flit between the dipping branches of mangroves and the water. After that I caught sight of many. Eventually, the best photograph was of one which sat on a mooring pole for boats (alongside). The splash of lilac near the base of its tail is barely visible when it is perched, but is a beautiful sight when it flies.

Which part of Bhitarkanika is best for sighting of kingfishers? We found that the backwaters between the jetty in Khola village and Dangamal is a great place for these birds. We spotted all seven species in a single one hour boat ride between these points. You can also see them almost anywhere near the waters.