Ishika Ramakrishna
Early Bird webinars are my favorite weekend activity. It happens once a month and this time round, the interactive online session was for ninety minutes. This week’s special guest was Ishika Ramakrishna.
Ishika Ramakrishna is a wildlife biologist and birding enthusiast. She talked about how much she enjoyed birding and that even though loved watching birds from a young age, her full-time job was studying and researching monkeys! She narrated her travel to the Great Nicobar where she studied Nicobar Long-Tailed Macaque. She mentioned that the trip was for three days. She remembers how the macaques would sometimes go to the nearby villages and do a little mischief and sometimes stray to the coastal areas as well. During this time, when she was studying Long-Tailed Macaque she noticed birds nearby. She saw White-bellied eagles ( one of the predators of the Long-Tailed Macaque), Hill Mynas, the Lesser Frigate bird, and the Nicobar Megapode/ Temperature bird. Temperature birds get their name as they build mounds of sand where they lay their eggs to incubate. Depending on the weather conditions, they would add or remove the sand thereby keeping their eggs in perfect temperature. One day, she recalls, when left her binoculars on a stone, the Macaques started playing with it. The primates are hierarchical and have leaders of the troop who observe the item first. Nobody is allowed to snatch or steal it from the patriarch. The next most important member sits near the senior and observes the item next. The family bashed the binoculars like a coconut, bit it, and even tried wearing it. After passing it around three times, Ishika trades the binoculars for a small jackfruit loved by the Macaques. Thankfully, she remembers only the case of the equipment was spoilt and the remaining was still intact. She followed the monkeys every day and they got used to her presence in their vicinity. Ishika constantly reminded me of Jane Goodall another primate lover.
Currently, she is in Assam working on the Hoolock Gibbon an endangered species. She observed that near the Gibbons there were always Hair crested Drongos also called Spagled Drongo. This is because when the Hoolock Gibbons shake the tree due to their swinging and moving insects get dislodged or fly away. Hence, it makes a good meal for the drongos. Being the only ape species in India, conservation efforts are being made to save the Hoolock Gibbon.
Ishika Ramakrishna has inspired me and I want to bird and research animals like her as well. She says making notes and drawing birds is her favorite way to bird and I would like to follow her footsteps. I hope she continues to research and study monkeys, observe birds, and inspire many minds like me around the world.
This is her blog: https://ishikaramakrishna.wordpress.com/
I relished this webinar and I look forward to many more like this.
See you soon!
