A Meet With A Lesser Noddy

Meeting a Lesser Noddy on land is considered extremely lucky by most birders. The Lesser Noddy is a pelagic bird; a bird that usually lives on the open waters of the sea or ocean. They come to land usually only for breeding. I hope now you know why wrote “extremely lucky’ in my opening sentence.

A Lesser Noddy had come to Pulicat Lake in the state of Tamil Nadu, India in October of 2018. It had stayed for several weeks. I, along with some friends, had made a trip back then to see it (read about here). But luck had not favoured us. It had decided to head back out into the open waters a day or so before we visited. So when I heard of a sighting of the Lesser Noddy again in August this year, I was super excited. A few of us decided to make the trip to try and see it this time. But the trip would have to wait as it was not yet convenient time for all of us. We decided to wait and go together.

The Pulicat Lake where it had been sighted, is around 350 kms away from Bangalore. Given the distance and effort it would take, we wanted to increase the odds of seeing it. We got in touch with the local boatman, Yuvraj, who is the one that birders hire. Over the years, he has become familiar with the birds and the spots in which they are found. He reported that the bird had not been sighted for last couple of days when he had gone out. “Hmm, was the bird going to give me a miss this time too?” I wondered? Yuvraj said that he would try again the next day morning and revert.

It was Wednesday morning. I was doing yoga with my wife at home. Once I finished by 8:30am I noticed that there was a missed call from Rahul. I called him back. He had got news that Yuvraj had sighted the bird in the morning. Now the decision was if we should head out the same itself. A few calls between the group (Dhanapal, Albin, Rahul and I) and the plan was on. Rain was predicted from Friday. So it was best to head out today morning itself.

We were to all meet up at Rahul’s place and then head out together from there. I reached Rahuls’s place by 11:30am. The others were already there. We were going in Albin’s car this time. By 11:40am, we were on our way. Lesser Noddy, ready or not here we come! 😀

We would be staying in KRC Grand, a lodge (motel) in Ponneri, a place roughly 20 minutes drive away from the Pulicat Lake pier. We reached the lodge by around 9:45pm. Check-in formalities completed, we got the manager to organise dinner for us. It was not long before we all retired to our rooms. It had been a long day. Tomorrow was going to be an exciting day (hopefully 🙂 ). So we needed to get some rest.

We wanted to see if we could catch the sunrise at the pier. So we were out by 5:00am from the lodge. With a short coffee/tea break in between, we were at the pier by 5:40am. As Albin parked the car, we all heard a strange loud reverberating roar. All of us got out of the car immediately to investigate what it was. It seemed to be coming from up in the sky. Looking up, we saw an unusual plume. Here is a photo of what we saw.

Surely something big was flying up above. We continued to look up and admire when Yuvraj came in with his boat. Inquires with him validated what we had suspected. It was the after burn of a space rocket that had been launched just minutes before. All the local fishermen had been informed of the launch. It was just another rocket launch for them I guess. But for us, it had been an unexpected pleasant surprise to have witnessed it 🙂 . Had we arrived 10 to 15 minutes later, we would not have heard the roar nor seen the after burn. It was already turning out to be a good day! 😀 . Here is a picture of what the morning looked like at this time:

10 minutes later, we were headed out on the boat into the lake. Here is all of us as we headed out, full of anticipation:

We could see a lot of Terns, Eurasian Curlews and Ruddy Turnstones. But we decided to head straight to the sand bars where the Lesser Noddy was being seen. Around 15 minutes later we were there. We could see the sand bar had quite a few Terns. Dhanapal told us that the Noddy is usually seen mixed in the flock of Terns. Yuvraj stopped the boat some distance away from the sand bar. We all then scanned the flock to see if the Noddy was around. Our hearts sank; there was no sign of the Noddy. It should have been easy to see it had it been there. It was a dark bird and would have stood out in the flock of whitish Terns. We could only see Lesser Crested Terns, Greater Crested Terns, Whiskered Terns, Caspian Terns, Lesser Sand Plovers and Ruddy Turnstones in the flock. Was I to miss the Noddy this time too? 😦

It was probably mid tide when we had reached. It would soon become high tide. We did not want to lose hope just yet. We decided to wait around the place for some time. Yuvraj got his boat onto the large stretch of sandy beach a bit further away from the sand bar with the flock of birds. This allowed us to walk onto the beach as well as be able to observe the sand bar. On the other side of the beach was the open waters. We saw a White-bellied Sea Eagle being harassed by a murder of crows (a flock of crows is called a murder 🙂 ). There were also some Terns that were in flight. Scanning the area some more, Dhanapal and I noticed a dark bird also in flight. “Hmm, could that be the Lesser Noddy?”, we wondered. Maybe all was not lost 😀 .

30 minutes had gone past. By now all of us were on the sandy beach and walking in different directions. The water level had risen some more. A bit of the sand bar had become submerged. The flock of Terns were still there but had a moved a bit further away. Dhanapal and I were close to the boat and scanned the waterway connecting the sand bar and the open sea. We noticed the dark bird that had been flying over the open waters earlier, flying in the direction of the sand bar. We continued to follow it. As it came closer, it became clear as to what it was; the Lesser Noddy!

The bird finally flew and landed on the same sand bar as that with all the Terns. I gave a big shout out to Albin and Rahul who were almost the other edge of the beach near the open waters. It was a sight to see them making a sprint back to the boat. I can’t blame them. I am sure I would have done the same too 😀 .

Here is how it appeared to us when we first saw it sitting on the sand bar along with the terns. You can see it as the black spot in the middle 🙂 .

As we waited for Albin and Rahul to reach the boat so that we could go nearer to the sand bar, the entire flock took off. But we could still make out the Noddy in between the flock. Below is how it looked from afar.

Where you able to spot it? It is the dark bird in the centre 🙂 . Well, you just have to take my word for it 😀 . Eventually it came back to the sand bar.

Back on the boat, Yuvraj got us much closer to the sand bar. Taking pictures from a boat is not easy. So we decided to step into the water not far from the sand bar. It was easy to stand. While on the sand bar, the bird was busy preening itself. Here are some pictures of it doing so:

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The flock would once in a while take to the wing. I managed to capture a couple of pictures of it in flight:

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When it took to flight, it would head out for some time, mostly in the company of the Terns. It looked like it was trying to possibly catch some marine creatures. Here is it doing so:

It would eventually came back onto the sand bar. Here is it landing back on the sand bar:

Here is a picture of when it stood still:

How about a yoga pose? 🙂

Here is what it looked like where we stood off the boat:

The high tide had mostly come in. The sand bar had almost vanished with it. Rain was also predicted. And we did not want to be caught in the open when it did. We had had our hearts fill of the Noddy. Sp we decided to head back.

Now that we had seen the Lesser Noddy, we had to get another picture similar to one in the morning. Can you see our smiles?

Back at the lodge, we quickly packed our luggage, finished the checkout formalities and started back. Well, do you think this was the end of the bird sighting from the trip? Hell no! Watch out for my next posts 🙂 .

Video

Here is a short video that I have put together that captures some of its behaviour, including it flying around with the Terns

Did you have similar experience of “chasing” a bird that you had longed to see? Let me know through your comments below.

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