The Surprise Entrant - Andaman Green Pigeon

South Andaman

He wasn’t on my viewfinder while I was photographing a White Headed Starling and Bam ! the branch shook when he landed almost on top of the starling ( Pic: 1 ). Without doubt, the most dramatic entry any creature has made in front of me till date. The motivation for the surprise landing was obviously the fruits that you can clearly see in the pictures. Now this guy was bigger than the starling. Much bigger and he slowly muscled the poor Starling out. There was no fight, just a steady invasion of the Starling’s space till the Starling got fed up and left his spot.

Mani exclaimed, “Green Pigeon, Green Pigeon” a few times as my guy proceeded to get comfy and it became evident that he was there for the fruit. He also noted that my guy was male as the females don’t have the maroon on their backs. We had him for like 3 minutes on that perch and a couple of very unique things happened during those. My guy had his gaze on me pretty much the whole time. That’s not something I usually get from birds. Mammals do it often. Fleeting glances is what I usually expect from birds. This guy was wary of our presence perhaps given my lens and kept his gaze on while he ate giving me just what I wanted. He was pretty relaxed and unhurried about his business. He’s way bigger than most birds in those parts so I doubt he has much to worry about as far as threats were concerned. Now, I love red eyes on birds and I’d seen em red rimmed to all red with a little black iris on this trip itself. This guy just took that to a new level of complexity. His irises seemed to have a purple rim on the inside. I think I noticed that somewhere in between the shooting and put it off for confirmation for later only to be rewarded with the affirmative a little later. What gorgeous eyes ! I would have never even imagined eyes like these even five minutes before seeing him. Mother Nature just has such a way of surprising you if you’re looking. There’s always some wonder everywhere. He didn’t finish all the fruit on that bunch. He jetted out just as he had landed in a hurry suddenly and I was left hoping to see his kind again soon in the open cause the foliage and light didn’t let me do justice to his maroon mantle and yellow black wings. I also knew by then that seeing them would not be possible outside the islands. Well, guess it’ll have to wait for the next visit.

Like most birds from Andaman there’s very little information specifically available about these guys. They’re one of thirty kinds of Green Pigeons spread across Asia and Africa. It’s a Green Pigeon. What more could there be to say right? Well, probably a lot, if more people observed and recorded. I feel the issue here is that the people observing are not the ones doing the recording and vice versa. Also, video is all good and all that but words written down are an easier reference. No one’s gonna play a 5 minute video repeatedly to recall a two second part. Words read are easier recall for others if you ask me but we live in a world where video is trending right now.

Well, there’s another reason why I want to go back to Andaman & Nicobar. I’ve only been exposed to one third of the possibilities there on this first trip. I find that there’s very little lore about the birds there. I don’t see that many stories about their nature out or even among us guys who do this. It’s new territory so to speak. Im sure many people in Kerela know common birds there by their names like they do in Uttarakhand. That’s not the case in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. It’s still off the beaten wildlifer track and wildlife there although abundant, isn’t part of the daily conversation specifically although it might be so generally now.

Perhaps it’s upto us to get the lore going though, isn’t it?