Saturday 12 November 2022
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| Common Vine Snake - Netravali |
Day 7 - the final day of the trip
Another early start: we were up and packed for 0545, to be greeted by Omkar and the usual flask of hot milky tea provided by the Nature's Nest staff. The aim was to do most of the driving before sunrise, so that we could start birding early at Netravali. As light dawned, we started to see birds from the car: a Greater Coucal on a post and three flying Asian Openbill Storks. Just before the entrance to the wildlife sanctuary, Omkar pulled off the road and stopped by an open area next to the forest.
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| First stop - Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary |
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| Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary - Mattoni Gate |
There was a lot of bird activity here: Forest Wagtail, Asian Koel, Brown Shrike, Ashy Drongo (eating a dragonfly), Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Oriental Green Bee-eater and a flock of Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters, Yellow-browed Bulbul, Purple Sunbird, four Plum-headed Parakeets, Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo, Indian Golden Oriole, two Malabar Pied Hornbills and an Indian Blackbird. None of these were new species for us, which was a measure of how much we had already seen in just six days. However, two new species did turn up. The first was a flying Rufous-bellied Eagle (below).
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| Rufous-bellied Eagle (record photo) - Netravali |
At first glance, my photos of this raptor were simply black silhouettes, giving very little away. However, editing reveals the dark hood as well as the rufous colour of the underwing coverts. although it may not be obvious here! This is another one of those species that ranges over a lot of south east Asia and Indonesia, but has a fairly restricted distribution on the sub-continent, essentially the Western Ghats and north east India. We also tracked down a Black-naped Oriole which is a winter visitor to India, breeding in Indonesia and south China, but not common.
From the Mattoni Gate the road climbed steeply into the sanctuary; this was the first time that we were to gain some height in the Western Ghats. We passed through what looked like a fantastically diverse forest before stopping near to an outlook which gave us a view over the forested mountains. Birds here included Oriental White-eye, Nilgiri Flowerpecker and Orange-headed Thrush.
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| Western Ghats panorama - Netravali |
Back in the car, the road descended for a bit before passing through a village, one of a few lying within the protected area. On the far side of the settlement we stopped under a large fig which Omkar identified as a Mysore Fig Ficus drupacea. The tree attracted a range of avian visitors, including a Malabar Barbet (below) that was stuffing its bill with the ripe orange fruit.
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| Malabar Barbet on Mysore Fig - Netravali |
Malabar Barbets may be messy eaters, but these beautifully patterned birds are a real local speciality, being Western Ghats endemics. Several other birds visited the tree while we watched from below: White-cheeked Barbets, a male Crimson-rumped Sunbird and White-browed Bulbul.
We drove a bit further up the hill before stopping again. There was movement in the trees above the road, and we were able to pick out a pair of Orange (aka Scarlet) Minivets. A walk along a contour-level track produced three new species in succession, the first of which was a group of Rufous Babblers in a small cashew plantation. (We were still not far from the village, so this wasn’t pristine forest.)
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| Rufous Babbler - Netravali |
The Rufous Babblers were making a bit of a racket, as babblers do. We had excellent views, which was unusual as it is apparently rare to see one out in the open. This is yet another Western Ghats endemic species. The field guide points out the contrasting colours of the two mandibles as an identification feature, but it doesn't mention Omkar’s favourite feature – their ‘yellow lipstick’!
I wasn’t able to get decent images of the other two new species. Golden-fronted Leafbird represented another new bird family for me (the Chloroseidae), while an elusive Indian Scimitar Babbler finally appeared through a gap in the vegetation showing its striped head and curved bill. Also here was a Loten’s Sunbird and another new butterfly – the Common Sailor Neptis hylas (below).
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| Common Sailor Neptis hylas - Netravali |
The road climbed higher into the forest. We parked at a lay-by, just as a Malabar Whistling Thrush broke with its usual skulking habits and flew right across the road in a flash of blue. It is a more common species than I had initially realised. We walked down a path through semi-evergreen forest, now feeling quite humid and sticky, and stopped by a stream at the bottom of the valley. Sitting on a leaf, and looking very like a butterfly, was an attractive day-flying moth: Dysphania nelera (below).
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| Dysphania nelera having a drink - Netravali |
The moth doesn’t seem to have a common name, but is in the same family (Geometridae) and genus as the more common Blue Tiger Moth D. percota that we had seen the previous day at Tambdi Surla. The yellow edging to the hindwings is the diagnostic feature for D. nelera; some authorities group this with D. palmyra – although that lacks the distinctive marginal yellow spotting. (Information from the useful Moths of India website.)
The stream was quiet for birds, the highlights being a small group of Western Crowned Warblers and a Black-naped Monarch. Two small Leaping Frogs Indirana sp. (below) hid in a crevice between the boulders. Their long jumps when escaping from trouble are the source of the name. Some 14 species are described, all Western Ghats endemics. It’s difficult to identify them to species level; indeed, a new species (the Netravali Leaping Frog I. salelkari) was discovered as recently as 2015.
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| Leaping Frogs Indirana sp. - Netravali |
Just after taking the above photo, I felt something moving above my right sock. I lifted my trouser leg and was startled to find a leech. I instantly pulled it off; it fell on a nearby rock and began to make a bid for freedom. I was able to take a quick, but blurry phone photo (below). There are a lot of leech species (hooray), but one possibility is the Indian Leech Haemadipsa sylvestris. I warned the others: Richard checked and found that he’d also been bitten.
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| Leech - Netravali |
I congratulated myself for having spotted it before it could do any damage. But pride comes before a fall, so I will briefly fast forward to lunch time when I spotted an ominous dark patch on the outside of my right trouser leg. Investigating further I was horrified to discover that I had indeed been bitten by a leech, and it was still bleeding. Worse still, my left sock was caked with blood as a result of two more bites just above my ankle. The sock went in the bin. It took me a while to clean up all of the blood, apply some antiseptic cream and also plasters – the only way of stemming the bleeding. I was simultaneously shocked and fascinated; it looked nicely gory, but I hadn’t felt a thing. And the culprits were long gone, leaving neat, circular bite mark and a great deal of blood. (I haven't included my photo of the wound for fear that it will breach some blogging guideline on the inclusion of shocking images!) I warned Richard; he discovered bites as well.
With hindsight, it seems barely believable that I’d been losing blood for four hours. I suppose that it’s possible that I (we) had picked up more leeches at a later stop. But the stream was the prime candidate; it was a damp environment, and we had been sitting on moist boulders. And our attention had been diverted by the frogs. Anyway, it’s all part of the jungle experience and it makes a good tale to tell. People enjoy hearing about personal discomfort much more than tales of epic wildlife, tropical sunsets and memorable curries.
We walked back to the car and continued along the road, which turned into an unsurfaced track, and stopped by a waterfall. We could hear the call of a woodpecker in the mature trees nearby, and finally tracked down this female Greater Flameback (below), a species of wet tropical and subtropical forests across the Indian subcontinent and south east Asia.
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| Greater Flameback (female) - Netravali |
We also got a good view of a male Crimson-backed Sunbird (below), another Western Ghats endemic. Spectacular, even if the colours clash with each other a bit (to my eyes anyway).
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| Crimson-backed Sunbird (male) - Netravali |
A couple of butterflies were also showing well. This Chocolate Pansy Junonia iphita (below), was the third species in this genus that we’d seen on the trip.
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| Chocolate Pansy Junonia iphita - Netravali |
The skipper (Hesperiidae) below is I think Dark Palm-Dart Telicota bambusae; the markings look better for this than for the similar Pale Palm-Dart T. colon, although there isn’t much in it. Skippers can be tricky!
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| Dark Palm-Dart Telicota bambusae - Netravali |
With that, we returned to the car and retraced our route through the sanctuary. Passing through the village we stopped to look at this Hoopoe (below), which at times was so close to the vehicle that I couldn't get the camera lens focussed on it.
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| Hoopoe - Netravali |
Re-entering the forest after passing through the village, we had the best snake encounter of the trip. This beautiful Common Vine Snake (below) was crossing the tarmac ahead of us. We stopped, blocking the road in case any other vehicles flattened it, and got out to take photographs.
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| Common Vine Snake - Netravali |
Unusually, the snake didn’t make a quick dash for freedom. Instead, it froze. Or rather it almost froze, because if you looked carefully its head continued to sway slightly from side to side. This looked like a really neat camouflage strategy, as the snake would be almost invisible in the canopy leaves where it normally lives and hunts. Unfortunately, this method was considerably less effective on a strip of black tarmac! After we took some photos, Omkar gently touched the snake’s tail. It wriggled with alacrity into the roadside vegetation, and vanished from sight instantly.
Common Vine Snakes have been the subject of some taxonomic confusion. Grewal et al (2022) give the scientific name as Ahaetulla nasuta. According to GBIF, this species ranges across India (mostly in the Western Ghats), Myanmar and south east Asia. All well and good. However, there has been some recent splitting going on (Malik et al., 2020); the taxon A. nasuta is now restricted to an endemic species from Sri Lanka. From that paper, the best match for our snake is now Ahaetulla borealis – both in terms of appearance and location. Wikipedia gives this the snappy vernacular name of the Northern Western Ghats Vine Snake. Anyway, whatever it’s called, it was a lovely thing. The snake is mildly venomous, but being rear-fanged it is less likely to give you a nasty bite. Grewal et al say that the diet is varied, and “includes tadpoles, lizards, birds, small mammals and even leeches”. Good.
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| Common Vine Snake (detail) - Netravali |
We left the sanctuary and stopped for lunch at the nearby Tanshikar Spice Farm, which was to be our base for the final night of our Goa trip.
To be continued ...
References
Grewal, B., Mathur, M. & Sood, T. (2022) Wildlife of India. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Mallik, A.K., Srikanthan, A.N., Pal, S.P., D’Souza, P.M., Shanker, K. and Ganesh, S.R. (2020). ‘Disentangling vines: a study of morphological crypsis and genetic divergence in vine snakes (Squamata: Colubridae: Ahaetulla) with the description of five new species from Peninsular India.’ Zootaxa, 4874(1), pp.1-62.
