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At the end of 2019, I was ready for a change of scenery. As a natural history photographer, I had spent the previous two years watching snow leopards in the Himalayas. Then, one snowy afternoon, bird biologist Dr. I got a short call from Rohit Naniwadekar. Nature Conservation Foundation. He asked me to get to a small volcanic island in the north of the Andaman Sea as quickly as possible.
Within a week, I had exchanged seemingly endless landlocked mountains for a tiny piece of land at the end of the world.
Dr. Narcondam Island, a private wildlife sanctuary that Naniwadekar plans to conduct his research on, gives new meaning to the word “remote.” Located about 80 miles east of the main spine of the Andaman Islands and measuring just 2.6 square miles in total (twice the size of Central Park), Narcondam is a dense green volcanic mountain overlooking azure waters. Few scientists and natural history photographers have ever set foot on its deserted beaches.
Getting to Narcondam, part of the Indian union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, was not easy. After obtaining the appropriate government clearances, we caught a flight from mainland India to the Andaman Islands – simple enough. But it was followed by a long night on rough seas to reach Narcondam. Moreover, the island has no docking or soft landing options, so we had to hop on tiny rubber boats and fight the waves before we landed. We were drenched from head to toe.
In the end, the five of us – three scientists, a wildlife biologist turned artist, and I – found ourselves thrown away with nothing but our equipment, some dry groceries, and a healthy dose of excitement.
The team’s original goal was to study and document the endangered and island-specific Narcondam Eagles (Rhyticeros narcondami). Luckily, as soon as we landed, we saw our first couple flying over the beach.
After seeing the Great Hornbills of mainland India in person, I realized that these hornbills are smaller than I expected. But they were still stunning. The male is slightly larger, with a reddish-colored head and black body, while the female is completely black. The bird’s closest surviving relative is the Blyth’s hornbill, found in Papua New Guinea.
A few hours after our arrival, we noticed that the Narcondam hornbeams were in abundance, albeit confined to a small area of the island. Dr. Two of the critical questions that Naniwadekar’s team aimed to understand during the two-month visit were determining how many of them existed and what factors encouraged their abundance.
Narcondam was difficult to explore. Its steep terrain consists of ridges and valleys of loose, crumbling rocks held together by seemingly impenetrable shrubs and woody climbing plants known as lianas.
However, each day we set off in a different direction from our base, letting the beauty of the island unfold before us. Some patches resembled a dry deciduous forest, while others were laden with fog and evoked dense cloud forests.
We walked on our hands and knees through tangled brushwood and gazed at giant buttress trees nearly 130 feet high, filtering sunlight through layers of canopy to a carpet of ferns below.
Over time, the team began to explore the surprising abundance of hornbills. They walked along lines at different heights to estimate the bird’s population density. Vegetation plots were arranged to understand the diversity of flowers. Camera traps were set up near fruit trees to study the effects of rodents on native plants.
The work was time consuming, physically demanding and monotonous, but the excitement of discovering and identifying different plant and animal species while in the field was enough to lift the morale of the whole party.
During the day, the Latin names of various plants and birds echoed in the forest. Come evening, we’d come back with fresh coconut water in the comfort of a hammock. At night we would look at the ocean, contemplate the bottom of the island lying beneath the water surface, imagining all the life we couldn’t see.
Some days, I would sit outside for hours in the trees with a zoom lens, going out on my own looking for a nest, hoping to capture close-ups of the Eagle. I am fondly familiar with the mayhem they create as they playfully chase each other or feed on a ficus tree.
Narcondam hornbills have huge beaks that they use to pluck thick berries and gently toss them into the air before swallowing them or giving them to a mate.
It was a time of courtship, and we had an explosion of behavior that was difficult to resolve. For weeks, we’ve observed constant vocalization, courtship, and double bonding between potential mates as they call out to each other. Pairs would go around the nests, take turns cleaning them, fly together, feed together, very gently clean each other.
While I was busy photographing these birds, the team began to put together the puzzle of the hornbill population. They estimated around 1,000 birds, corresponding to a density of about 390 birds per square mile – far beyond all recorded densities for any other hornbill species on the planet.
Also, the density of the island’s fruit trees—especially the density of figs consumed by Narcondam hornbills—was in between. two and 10 times higher as in comparable forests.
Scientist and team botanist from the Indian Wildlife Institute, Dr. “Figs have a unique gradual fruiting feature,” said Navendu Page. “So at any given time there are few trees bearing fruit on the island, providing a continuous source of food for hornbills throughout the year.”
Besides figs, other native plants are also plentiful. And since Eagles are the largest fruiting animals on the island, Dr. Page theorizes that birds effectively change the distribution of trees to favor the trees they feed on. In other words: the Eagles are steadily turning the island into their Garden of Eden by spreading the seeds with their excrement.
Still, the birds face challenges. Andaman and Nicobar Islands in recent years critical asset for India in the country’s effort to counter China’s expansion in the Indian Ocean. Therefore, the archipelago faces risks from potential infrastructure development.
Climate change is also a potential threat, especially it is known to disrupt the fruiting patterns of plants. Dr. “In such a tightly connected ecosystem,” Naniwadekar explained, “just one or two bad fruiting years can significantly affect the hornbill population.”
Non-native rats also invaded Narcondam. Early camera trap studies show that they feed heavily on certain seeds and may eventually change the island’s flower composition.
At the end of our nearly two-month stay, as some of us set out in rubber boats for our landing craft, I saw a pair of hornbills fly into the open sky, gleaming in the golden light of dawn. This is Dr. I was struck by the thought that I would be able to see these birds for the last time, true “evolutionary wonders,” as Naniwadekar once described them.
“They should be given the same respect and protection as we give to the man-made wonders of our world,” he added.
Prasenjeet Yadav He is a natural history and science photographer based in Bangalore, India. You can follow their work Instagram and excitement.
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