The Shrike Babbler of Sikkim

A Blyth's Shrike Babbler Pteruthias aeralatus in Kewzing

I went to South Sikkim's Ravangla recently. On April 1, with the camera and tripod and my recording equipment I went on a walk to the small hamlet of Kewzing. Took several photographs of various birds on the way. Some I knew. Some I didn't. It was a bright sunny day (the previous evening when we arrived it rained a lot) and I was in a good mood.
On the way I saw a Rufous Sibia calling and recorded the call. It turned out to be of excellent quality. Though right on the main road, there was zero ambient noise in this recording.

Rufous Sibia calling

While on the football ground of Kewzing - a little above the main road - I heard the persistent call of a bird. It was pretty loud and it kept on singing continuously for quite some time. As if asking me to record its vocalisation. Now, normally I don't record a bird unless I see it and take a photograph of it. Because to me identity of the bird is important. But for this particular song I made an exception because the bird seemed somewhat insistent and the quality of the call was also excellent. In fact I thought I would record it and then play it back to entice it out into the open. But that didn't quite happen, as I realised my Chandni speaker was a useless one.

So the recording stayed with me. Unidentified.

A few days ago, I set out to solve the mystery of the recording. What bird could it have been? On Xeno-Canto I kept playing various sounds of the birds that I had seen in Kewzing and Ravangla or the potential birds that are known to reside there. It just didn't match. I tried the scarlet minivet, I tried various laughing thrushes and flycatchers etc. Finally I remembered that I had also photographed a "White-browed Shrike Babbler" there and so searched for it.

What came out were two recordings by Frank Lambert that were listed as Blyth's Shrike Babbler recorded in Eagle Nest, Arunachal. In the remarks coloumn he mentioned that White-browed Shrike Babbler is in the process of being split. However, these recordings sounded somewhat similar to my bird.

So I kept on looking for it. Now I searched for Blyth's Shrike Babbler with some renewed vigour. And there were quite a few calls. One particular sound matched closely with mine but it wasn't quite the same. It was a recording by a Bhutanese birding guide called Norbu. However, the closeness of the call prompted me to post the call under the mystery section of Xeno-Canto - asking experts to give their views and comments.

A Rufous Sibia taken on the road from Ravangla to Kewzing, October 2010

Meanwhile, I got Arka to listen to the call over the phone and also sent it to Sumit-da. While Arka said, it must be the White-browed Shrike Babbler, because "what else can it be?" Sumitda played it safe and suggested that he would send it to Sashank Dalvi who is right now in the field. Sashank is supposed to be an authority on this as he is doing or has done a research on this species.

By this time another confusion has started bugging me. Indian field guide books don't mention any name called Blyth's Shrike Babbler. OBI database also doesn't have any such bird. And Xeno-Canto or Macaulay do not have anything but Blyth's. There is no such listing of any bird called White-browed Shrike Babbler. Which one do I follow? My bird is very real - whatever its name is.

There was no reply for a day or so on Xeno. After this I wanted to check Cornell University's natural sound library database. There were some 19 calls listed under Blyth's Shrike Babbler when I searched for it. One of them is from Bhutan and another from Nepal but none is from India. I played the call from Bhutan. And lo and behold. It is exactly my bird that is calling. A carbon copy almost. A recording made in 1994 near Gasa in Bhutan (a virtually inaccessible place when I was in Bhutan. Laya/Gasa were mentioned together as two of the toughest punishment postings for any teacher in Bhutan).

So now I know that my bird is a Blyth's Shrike Babbler. And here it is in all its glory.

I wrote down the entire experience because it was a very satisfying one for me. I will forget this very soon. But when I revisit this write up after a few months or years I will certainly relive those moments of frustration and excitement I went through. It is a very satisfying thing.