Indian Birds Vol. 3 No. 5 September-October 2007 ISSN 0973-1407 Editor Emeritus Zafar Futehally Editor Aasheesh Pittie Email: [email protected] Contents Associate Editor V. Santharam Avifaunal survey of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, January 2007 Editorial Board S. Pande, N. Sant, S. Ranade, S. Pednekar, P. Mestry, P. Deshpande, Maan Barua Anwaruddin Choudhury S. Kharat & V. Deshmukh Bill Harvey Farah Ishtiaq 162 Rajah Jayapal Madhusudan Katti Taej Mundkur A bibliography of the ornithology of Andaman & Nicobar Islands Rishad Naoroji Suhel Quader Aasheesh Pittie 181 Harkirat Singh Sangha C. Sashikumar S. Subramanya K. Gopi Sundar Contributing Editors Short notes 198 Praveen J. Ragupathy Kannan Lavkumar Khachar Contributing Photographer Clement Francis Arpit Deomurari Layout & Design K. Jayaram Office P. Rambabu NEW ORNIS FOUNDATION Registration No. 314/2004 URL: www.indianbirds.in Trustees Zafar Futehally Aasheesh Pittie V. Santharam, PhD. Rishad Naoroji Taej Mundkur, PhD. S. Subramanya, PhD. Suhel Quader, PhD. Aims & Objectives • To publish a newsletter that will provide a platform to birdwatchers for publishing notes and observations primarily on birds of South Asia. Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus, Hut Bay, Little Andaman Is. Photo: Satish Pande • To promote awareness of bird watching amongst the general public. • To establish and maintain links/liaison with other Date of publication: 26 November 2007 associations or organized bodies in India or abroad whose objectives are in keeping with the objectives of the Trust (i.e. to support amateur Front cover: Narcondam Hornbill Aceros narcondami (male), Narcondam Is. birdwatchers with cash / kind for projects in Photographer: Niranjan Sant. ornithology). Indian Birds Vol. 3 No. 5 (September–October 2007) 161 Avifaunal survey of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, January 2007 Satish Pande, Niranjan Sant, Satish Ranade, Shivkumar Pednekar, Premsagar Mestry, Prashant Deshpande, Sanjay Kharat & Vaibhav Deshmukh Pande, Satish., Sant, N., Ranade, S., Pednekar, S., Mestry, P., Deshpande, P., Kharat, S. & Deshmukh, V. 2007. Avifaunal survey of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, January 2007. Indian Birds 3 (5): 162–180. Satish Pande, ELA Foundation, Pune. C-9, Bhosale Park, Sahakarnagar-2, Pune 411009, Maharashtra, India. Email: [email protected] Mss received on: 12.vii.2007 Introduction Indian waters. The first part of this survey focused on offshore The earliest reports on the avifauna of Andaman Islands are waters and islands in the Arabian Sea and was completed by Blyth (1845, 1846a, 1846b, 1863, 1866—the last with during October–November 2005 (Pande 2005). The second extracts from Captain Blair’s letter, after whom Port Blair is part focused on the Lakshadweep Archipelago in the named). Avifaunal accounts of birds from Andaman and Arabian Sea (Pande 2007; Pande et al. 2007). Here we present Nicobar Islands from various other collections were recorded a report of the third and final part of the survey. by naturalists like Mouat (1863), Pelzeln, (1865, first report of Nicobar avifauna in Tikedar, 1984), Walden (1866, 1873), Study area Beavan (1867), Tytler (1867), Ball (1870, 1872), Hume (1874, The Andaman and Nicobar, or, Bay Islands, in the Bay of 1875, 1876), St. John (1898), Butler (1899, 1900), Cory (1902), Bengal (06º45’N–13º30’N 92º20’E–93º56’E), extend over 800 Richmond (1902) and Osmaston (1905,1906a, 1906b, 1908). km from north to south and have an approximate landmass Some prominent avifaunal collectors were Barbe, Capt. Lewis, of 8,429 km2 (Saldanha 1989; Tikedar 1984). These are truly A. O. Hume, F. Stoliczka, R. Davison, Asst. Surgeon G. E. oceanic islands, never having been connected to the Dobson, Boden Kloss, W. L. Abbott, Captains Ramsay, mainland during Pleistocene glaciations (Ripley & Beehler Wardlaw and, Wimbley (Tikedar 1984). Later studies on bio- ecology and migratory and other birds of the Bay Islands were by Wickham (1910), Whitehead (1912), Kloss (1927), Ferrar (1932), Bayley-de-Castro (1933), Stapylton (1933), Osmaston (1933) and, Vaurie (1959, 1965). There was a lull after World War II and immediately after Indian Independence, due to administrative problems, after which bird studies of the Bay Islands were resumed with reports by Abdulali (1964, 1965, 1967a, 1967b, 1971, 1976, 1981a, 1981b), Das (1971), Mukherjee & Dasgupta (1975), Dasgupta (1976), Mukherjee (1981), Saha & Dasgupta (1980), Tikader (1984), Whitaker (1985), Davidar et al. (1996), Sankaran (1998, 1998a), Grimmett et al. (1999), Sankaran & Sivakumar (1999), Vijayan et al. (2000), Dasgupta et al. (2002), Pande et al. (2003), Sivakumar (2003), Pande (2005, 2007) and, Pande et al. (2007). These are just a few of the major references from a larger bibliography on the avifauna of the Bay Islands (see pp. 181–197, this issue). In 2005, ELA Foundation (Pune) and the Fig. 1. Schematic map of Fig. 2. Schematic map of South Andaman Indian Coast Guard, under the guidance of Andaman & Nicobar Islands Island focused on the region around Port Ecological Society (Pune) undertook a survey showing our survey route. Blair to show the places visited by us during of pelagic and oceanic island avifauna in the survey. 162 Indian Birds Vol. 3 No. 5 (September–October 2007) Pande et al.: Andaman and Nicobar Islands 1989). The Bay Islands comprise 324 large and small islands endemic to the Bay Islands (Tikedar 1984). There are seven and are broadly divisible into three groups: national parks and 91 sanctuaries in the Andaman group and five national parks and one biosphere reserve in 1. Andaman group: comprising the islands of North Nicobars, comprising more than 16% of the total area of the Andaman, Middle Andaman, South Andaman, Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Pande et al. 1991; Kumar et Baratang, Rutland and other smaller islands and, al. 2005). Little Andaman, 65 km from South Andaman. 2. Nicobar group: comprising Great Nicobar, Little Methods Nicobar, Nancowry group of islands and, Car Nicobar This survey began at Port Blair (11º41’N, 92º43’E) on 8.i.2007 group of islands. and ended there on 20.i.2007. A brief itinerary is given in 3. Volcanic island group: comprising Narcondam—a Table 1 and routes are illustrated in Figs. 1 & 2. The total long dormant volcano and, Barren Island—a live length of the voyage was 1,700 km. All the sites that we volcano. visited are listed as IBA sites among the total of 19 sites listed from Bay Islands (Islam & Rahmani 2004). The first two groups are separated by the turbulent Ten- The survey was carried out on Indian Coast Guard ship Degree Channel, which is 150 km wide and about 400 CGS KANAKLATA BARUA for all islands except fathoms (731.52 m) deep, while the Duncan Passage Narcondam and Barren Islands, which were surveyed on separates Little Andaman from the Great Andaman group. the fast patrol vessel CGS LAXMI BAI. The cruising speed The islands are summits or ‘camel’s backs’ of the submerged during the surveys was 10–18 knots per hour (18.50–33.00 oceanic mountains, with coral deposits on some islands. kmph). The pelagic and island birds’ surveys were From the north the mountains are continuations of the Naga conducted in three phases, namely, oceanic bird survey en and Lushai Hills and Arakan Yoma through Cape Negrais route while cruising in the Andaman sea, island bird survey of Myanmar and in the south are festoons of Achin Head of by either landing from a jetty or in Geminis and, coastal bird Sumatra, Indonesia (Srinivasan 1986). The southern-most survey which was carried out on foot or in jeep in the form of point of India, the Pygmalion Point of Great Nicobar (now a non-intersecting line transect. Binoculars (10x40 and 20x60 submerged since the Tsunami in 2004), is 1,330 km from magnification), night vision binoculars and Swarowaski 40x southern India, but only 144 km from Achin Head, Sumatra. spotting scope were used for the coastal survey. Still- The soil cover of the Bay Islands is thin, acidic and comprises photographs were taken with SLR Canon EOS 20D and 2D alluvial, diluvial, clay and sandy types. The climate is with 300 mm and 1,200 mm lenses and video footage with tropical and moist with 300 cm annual rainfall, over 80% two cameras with 20x optical zoom lenses. The island survey humidity and temperature varying from 23ºC–31ºC (State was conducted in linear non-intersecting transects, the Statistical Bureau 1989). Typhoons occur during the south- lengths of which were proportionate to the size of the west monsoon and thunderstorms during summer. Weather respective island. The avian names in this communication is less oppressive from December till February. follow Manakadan & Pittie (2001) and taxonomy follows The forest types in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Rasmussen & Anderton (2005). Avian taxonomy is currently are: giant evergreen (multi-tier climatic climax along river undergoing change and remains a bit unclear with a few banks), Andaman tropical evergreen, southern hill top endemic Bay Island sub-species being upgraded to species tropical evergreen, Andaman semi-evergreen, Andaman level by Rasmussen & Anderton (2005). moist deciduous and, littoral and mangrove forests. Some vegetation cover also comprises of cane and bamboo brakes (Tikedar 1984; Anon., undated). The faunal elements of these islands bear both Indo- Malayan and Indo-Chinese affinities due to the geographic proximity of those landmasses (Smith 1931; Stoliczka 1870 quoted in Tikedar 1984). The absence of large mammals and presence of endemic fauna and flora is an interesting aspect of their composition (Tikedar 1984) since rare species are under greater threat than others and conservation biology largely focuses on their conservation (Gatson 1994). 28 endemic bird species (excluding races) are reported from Andaman and Nicobar groups of which 20 are endemic to the Andaman and eight to the Nicobar group (Jathar & Rahamani 2007). 103–105 taxa (37–38.2%) out of 268–270 avian species and races recorded from these islands are endemic—illustrating a high degree of endemism (Sankaran Niranjan Sant & Vijayan, 1993; Vijayan et al.