Home-makers, a very productive time

Grey-headed Parakeet - Photo by John Moore


(March 17th. HTT) A very interesting morning and probably the sighting of the morning was a pair of Chinese Francolin with the male displaying to a female in the rice stubble. She looked as if she didn’t want any part of it, running this way and that to elude him. Obviously she was leading him on otherwise she could have just taken wing and left him all fluffed up and excited.

Another bird I had my suspicions about was a Ruddy-breasted Crake. Now normally this bird is very shy and skulks but this one was strutting about within 3 or 4 metres of me but not a female in sight. Anyway, this is the closest I have been to one of these birds for any length of time, so it was another exciting moment.

Now for the continuing saga of ‘The Hole In The Tree’ as mentioned in my last piece. The Chestnut-tailed Starlings did take over the tenancy of the hole and the Plain-backed Sparrows seemed to have lost out. But – they have now found another abode just down the block in the same tree. This hole is actually on the underside of the branch but is proving no problem for these acrobatic birds. This hole was probably originally hacked out by Coppersmith Barbets as I have seen many of them nest in holes on the underside of branches.

A Grey-headed Parakeet was spotted feeding on seeds in a tree. Now this one I can tell you, with certainty, was an Ex-Con (an escapee), how do I know? It had a silver chain and a red tag attached to one leg. What did worry me was the chance that this chain might, in the future, get snagged on a branch or twig and that could prove fatal for this bird. But it was nice to see that it had adapted to living in the wild. One hope is that it will join up with a flock that is occasionally seen in the area.

Three separate Olive-backed Sunbirds nest were seen, all in the process of being built. It is no mistake or sloppy workmanship that these nests look like rubbish thrown into a tree, if you didn’t know what you were looking for you would never mistake them for a nest, does that make sense? All three nests were identical down to the ‘rubbish’ hanging
underneath.