In Pink-necked Green Pigeons both parent birds help in egg incubation and care of the nestlings. The male takes on the day shift, arriving at the nest at around 8 am. He stays in the nest all day, never leaving unless disturbed. The female arrives at around 5 pm and stays in the nest the entire night. Arrivals and departures may be delayed by up to 1.5 hours, especially when the birds detect people around. Like nosy photographers or birdwatchers hidden behind a screen some distance away.

Shift change is the most exciting moment. Usually the bird in the nest becomes slightly excited and moves around a bit when its partner is nearby. Sometimes there is soft gurgling vocalisation from either party. Then suddenly a bird flies in with a distinct flapping of wings to join the other in the nest. The latter moves slightly away to allow the former to sit in the nest before flying off. At times when people are around, the bird may fly in to land on a nearby branch, to move slowly towards the nest as the other bird flies off. Or the bird in the nest may suddenly fly off, the other flying in a few seconds later.

During egg incubation the bird sits quietly in the nest all the time. After the eggs are hatched the parent birds similarly sit quietly but the nestlings are always moving about. Most times the latter would pester the parent in the nest for food. This they do by pecking the parent around the neck area. The parent responds by opening its beak to allow the nestling to poke its beak in to receive the liquid crop milk. During this transfer of food, both necks may twist around somewhat until the transfer is complete. Food transfer occurs at intervals and may again be seen just before the bird leaves the nest. If not, the arriving bird will have to feed the nestlings.

Such a method of feeding allows for the parent birds to remain in the nest all the time, thus providing 24 hours protection to the nestlings. This is sharply contrasted to those birds that need to seek out fruits and insects to feed the nestlings. The nestlings of the Yellow-vented Bulbuls (Pycnonotus goiavier) are left alone for varying periods of time when the parents are away foraging.

Image shows the male just after arriving and the female just before departing, together with one nestling.

Years ago when I was living at a house in Swiss Club Road whose garden abutted the then Turf Club’s outer car park, there was a pair of Spotted Wood-owls (Strix seloputo) living in some old trees just inside and outside the garden. They were resident for several years until their favorite tree blew down in a storm one day and they apparently moved away. Virtually any morning, if it had rained in the night, I could go down through the gate and find the pair drinking and bathing in a particular puddle. They took little notice of me as long as I remained at a distance. Would that I had been as interested then in photography as I am now, but I wasn’t, and so have no pictorial record of this.

On one occasion I heard a lot of noise at the bottom of the garden in mid afternoon and walked down to see what was going on. There on a branch about twenty feet up sat two adult Spotted Wood-owls and two young ones. Some yards away on other branches were four Oriental Magpie-robins (Copsychus saularis) vociferously telling the owls to go away. The owls were taking not the slightest notice of this and ignored me. In due course the Oriental Magpie-robins gave up and peace reigned once more.

Comment by R. Subaraj: Great account! So little is understood about the Spotted Wood-owl that even their bathing in a puddle provides good data. Then you have the breeding record of this uncommon owl. I do not recall any other breeding records from the Swiss Club Road pair. Finally, local confirmation that the Oriental Magpie-Robin, also dislikes and protests the presence of a potential predator within it’s territory… from a distance of course.