It is easier for a frigatebird with a 7.5-feet wingspan to go through the eye of a needle than for it to be identified straightaway — unless you answer to the name of David James. Accounts abound of how this Australia-based pelagic-birds expert has puzzled out the identity of many windblown frigatebirds recorded in India.
In 2017, a frigatebird photographed by Vivek Puliyeri as it winged for a few fleeting moments near the IIT-Madras campus, was identified by Dipu Karuthedathu as a Lesser Frigatebird. Though himself a maven in pelagic-bird identification, Dipu would still run it past David, who confirmed it as a second-cycle Lesser Frigatebird. Vivek’s eBird entry of this sighting on December 24, 2017, details the whole process from sighting to identification and finally confirmation.
A Lesser Frigatebird sighted at Beypore in Calicut on March 28, 2015. Photo: Naveenlal Payyeri
And recently, David James was called upon to confirm the species of four frigatebirds sighted at Valmiki Nagar by Vikas Madhav Nagarajan, close on the heels of Cyclone Nivar making landfall. David gave his vedict: Two of them were Great Frigatebirds and the other two, Lesser Frigatebirds.
Identifying frigatebirds blown inland, in India, is seldom as effortless as a wind current-assisted flight in the skies, thanks to three factors. Every year, frigatebird sightings off the Indian coast can be numbered on one’s fingers, and therefore, many trained pairs of eyes are not around to spot the subtle differences that set two species apart. So, usually, there would be a significant time lag between sighting and confirmation.
A Lesser Frigatebird sighted on December 12, 2016 in Mylapore. Photo: Rama Neelamegam
Next comes an intrinsic factor: From their juvenile to adult stages, the three species of frigatebirds are similar, converging on major points. As these birds usually glide in and out of sight in a few swift seconds, usually thrust forward by a cyclone-induced gale, photographs can often miss features that accentuate the points where they diverge.
“Frigatebirds are big-sized birds, really bigger than the eagles that we see,” begins Dipu, adding that they have a minimum wingspan of around two metres.
A Great Frigatebird sighted at Valmiki Nagar on November 26. Photo: Vikas Madhav Nagarajan
Dipu elaborates: “They take many years to actually get to the colours and plumage and pattern that stay constant. They typically take four cycles and with every cycle they replace their feathers over a matter of a few months. By the fourth cycle, they will have a plumage that is close to adult plumage, and by the fifth cycle, they will have adult plumage. In adulthood, the colours and patterns do not change. The long process of growth to adulthood introduces many complex plumages. In juvenile plumage, all of them look very similar.”
- Lesser Frigatebird would be smaller than Great Frigatebird
- Christmas Island Frigatebird is the biggest of the three
- Every year, 10 to 15 frigatebirds could be sighted across India
- Two out of these 15 birds could be Christmas Island Frigatebirds
- Frigatbirds and other pelagic birds can rest on the flight
- In flight, they spend considerably lower energy than land birds
Dipu underlines that there are three species each with many variations based on changing plumages in the non-adult stages for birders to wrap their heads around.
So, to bridge the knowledge gap in the understanding of frigatebirds, in 2015, a group of pelagic-birds experts — Dipu et all — came up with a compilation of frigatebird sightings in India, for the November 2015 issue of Indian Birds.
The work is credited to Dipu Karuthedathu, David James, Aneesh Sasidevan, Mymoon Moghul, Prasanna Parab, S. S. Davidson, Sakthi Manickam, Vijayalakshmi Rao and Vineeth M.
By documenting sightings of critically-endangered Christmas Island Frigatebirds, the compliation also sought to overturn the misplaced notion that only the Great Frigatebird and Lesser Frigatebird occurred in India, Dipu points out.
- Dipu Karuthedathu talks of a group of pelagic birding enthusiasts who undertake mid-sea birding trips from the Western and Eastern coasts of India to study pelagic birds. They are from various walks of life, glued together by their fascination for pelagic birds. For instance, Dipu is himself an IT professional from Bengaluru.
- “It all started back in 2010, when we did a pelagic trip into the Arabian sea in fishing boats, with the help of Kerala’s Fisheries Department, the Coast Guard and other organisations, to see seabirds,” begins Dipu.
- Their fascination for these birds is rooted in the fact that these birds find the sea largely self-sufficient, and depend on land — remote islands, from an Indian point of view — for breeding. On the very first trip in 2010, Dipu says they “managed to see a couple of species, which deepened our interest in pelagic birds”.
- He continues: “Since them, we have done many mid-sea trips for pelagic birdwatching from many parts of India, including Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Tamil Nadu. These trips have been supported by various organisations. From Chennai, we have done many pelagic birdwatching trips, with the assistance of Subramanian Shankar, who is into pelagic birdwatching. From these trips, we have good data about pelagic birds on the Eastern coast.”
“Before that compilation, we mostly had records based on some washed-out birds as specimens. That was the first time we had done a compilation based on sightings. There was the notion that only Lesser and Great Frigatebirds were showing up in India, because those were the specimens that were collected,” he explains. No matter how seasoned, birders can easily misread features of frigatebirds as seen in hurriedly-snapped images. During Cyclone Vardah, Rama Neelamegam knew her camera had to move like greased lighting, around 3.30 pm on December 12 in 2016, to capture a windblown frigatebird that zoomed past her terrace in Mylapore. “From the record shot I had taken, it was later identified as a Lesser Frigatebird,” says Rama.
When Vikas sighted four frigatebirds, on the morning of November 26 this year, he had a sense of the birds being pushed. It was around 7.30 a.m., and the winds had slowed down, but not to a breeze, recalls Vikas. “They would have been in the 60-70 kph range.
There were four frigatebirds together, flying along with a few Brown Noddys and Bridled Terns. There would have been 11 birds, and they were being carried along the coast.” A study of the images he managed to click showed they were Lesser Frigatebirds and Great Frigatebirds, two each.
(Migrant Watch is a column about birds that visit Chennai)
