A nest of the Yellow-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) in Jeremy Lee’s condominium was somehow moved by the gardener and placed on a lone slender palm. During a recent check, the chick was found on a frond just below the nest with the parents still in attendance.

“However, just about half an hour later when I passed by again, I noticed to my horror that the bird appeared to hanging by its tongue,” recounted Jeremy. “From the picture (left) you can see that the nest is already toppled and you can see through the bottom of it. That was why I took its elder sibling and hand raised it for fear that it would all go down to the ground during the afternoon storms.

“No imagination can solve how this bird got its tongue caught in the material. I got a pair of scissors and cut the line as close to the tongue as possible. The bird looked in a bad condition but it still sat firm on the twig although its neck was now really tired and drooping down and its eyes began to close.

“It comes to a point where you have to decide how far do you want to interfere with fate. I decided to leave the bird as it was and let the parents handle it. I suspected that the bird is rather developed and further handling by a stranger will put it through more stress.

“By evening when I brought our tame chick along it was also calling and begging for food when it heard its sibling call. Hopefully tomorrow I find it in better form. Otherwise I will take it in and force-feed it if I have to.

“Back to the material that snagged it. It was definitely synthetic. Very fine and light and difficult to cut. I strongly suspect that it is the modern nylon kite flying line that is used for modern day kite fighting. That explains its abrasive nature and how it snagged the bird’s tongue and also how it resisted being cut by a pair of scissors.

“The bird’s nest was mainly constructed of fibre from neighbouring palms. Only a small amount of this white string was found on the nest.

“Talk about making our homes child-safe… even birds have the same problem.”

The next morning Jeremy checked on the nest. The adults were around, flying from tree to tree. The chick was on the ground, alive. It flew about 10 metres before Jeremy caught it.

As Jeremy wrote, “A close inspection showed that there was still a considerable amount of string in the mouth, so I left the bird on a perch and went back to get a sharp scissors. When I got back, I took a closer look and found that another 2-3 inches of string was attached to the tongue and at the free end of it, there appeared to be some kind of partially digested but dried up food. I proceeded to cut away the free string and took a closer look at the tongue. It was still a little swollen but in much better shape than the day before. This bird might not grow up to be the best singer in the condo, but it sure is better than dying from being hung by your tongue.

“Putting the pieces of evidence together, it seems like this free strand of string was hanging too close to the perched chick when the accident happened. It looks like a case of an insect or caterpillar that the parent brought back which was not going to go down the throat without a last fight and it probably caught hold of the loose string. So string and caterpillar went down the bird’s throat. The instinctive chocking response of these chicks probably caused the chick to further wrap more loose string round its arrow tipped tongue and the more it struggled the tighter the string got. Until I found it as it was yesterday. Cutting away the taught string solved half the problem. The chick managed to cough up the other 3 inches that was in the stomach. So at this point in time, it only had some string that was wrapped around its tongue behind the arrow tip. I think it can probably do fine without further intrusive surgery. And judging from its strength this morning, even with the remaining 3 inches still on it, it was able to eat despite the inconvenience.

“Will be walking by the last known area where the bird was found everyday to listen out for the parents calls and the chick’s call to ascertain that it is still doing well.

“A closer look at the string, it might be loose thin nylon string from the neighboring construction site. Very thin, but very strong. I found the same material in 3 nests along the same perimeter of the condo fence. Some of the newer nests in other parts of the condo also had the same material. In the past, it was just palm fibre and nothing else.”

Jeremy Lee
Singapore
20-21st May 2010

In late April 2010, a pair of Oriental White-eyes (Zosterops palpebrosus) completed building their nest after which the female laid two eggs. Both eggs hatched but unfortunately one chick disappeared from the nest when Lee Tiah Khee returned to check a week later. The remaining chick was doing well until it nearly fell off the nest in its excitement when an adult arrived with food.

Fortunately for the chick, it used one of its wings to hang on and managed to return safely to the nest. Things turned bad the next day when the adult returned with food. The chick was gone.

Nest predation is generally high among tropical birds. According to Stutchbury & Morton (2001), it can be as high as 80-90% as compared to a low of 40-60% of many temperate zone songbirds (Martin, 1993).

References:
1. Martin, T. E., 1993. Nest predation among vegetation layers and habitat types: revising the dogmas. American Naturalist, 141: 897-913.
2. Stutchbury, B. J. M. & E. S. Morton, 2001. Behavioral ecology of tropical birds. Academic Press, London. 165pp.

Dr Jeff Lim’s encounter with an inexperienced pair of breeding Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus) in May 2010 ended in tragedy. Jeff needed some persuasion to post his observation, as he would have preferred a story with a happy ending. However, he has been convinced that this is an interesting behaviour that has not been reported by most observers.

The pair of pipits built their nest well camouflaged in a bushy plant and laid three eggs (above left). Unfortunately the plant was right in the middle of a garden. And into the third week of nesting, an egg was lost when the gardener exposed the straw colored dome by trimming, leaving the contents perfectly exposed to the elements (above centre).

The brooding parent took pains to shelter their exposed eggs from rain and fought hard with the pair of nesting Long-Tailed Shrikes (Lanius schach) raiding their nest. The pipits lost and the nest was abandoned, leaving behind two spotty eggs with one broken (above right). As Jeff puts it, “Notice the nest transformation from one of order to the current disarray.”

“Over the last three days I have been observing the Yellow-vented Bulbul’s (Pycnonotus goiavier) nest and hoping to get more photos of the progress of the baby birds. In order not to overly stress the parents, I spent minimal time at the nest itself. However, I noticed only one head popped up regularly. Even during the first week after they hatched. I had the feeling that something was not right even then.

“This morning I noticed a stench as I approached the nest. I suspected that one of the chicks probably died of starvation or ill treatment by its sibling.

“I retrieved the only chick left in the nest and might have removed the rotting corpse from the nest as well. I returned later to find the dead chick on the ground, but I did remember that something was being held in the legs of the live chick as I took it out.

“My hands were also full of rotting juice.

“Am going to bathe the chick later when the sun is hot with swimming pool water and clean it up.

“What set me thinking was:

1. Do parents remove dead chicks from the nest?
2. Do siblings manage to kick their kin out of the nest.
3. What happened in this case where the winner might have done itself in. The sibling died in the nest, creating a cesspool-like living condition for it to live in.

“I have seen much younger chicks kicked out of the nest. That is a cleaner and clear-cut way of ending the battle. When the chicks are much larger like this one, they are able to lock their claws firmly on the nest even in death resulting in horrible nest conditions like this one.

“Sometimes there is a happier ending, when you see a pair of fledglings huddling together in the tree waiting to be fed and also looking out for and encouraging each other.

“Attached are the two photos I took this morning at the nest. Notice the nest has a dark damp bottom full of rotting juice. I retrieved the only chick left in the nest and might have removed the rotting corpse from the nest as well. It was dead for not more than 2-3 days.

“[Later when the sun was up], I took the remaining chick and cleaned it with swimming pool water. It was living in filthy conditions. However, it had already imprinted on its parents and would not take food from me, despite me putting the much older tame chick [rescued earlier from its nest when crows tried to attack it] beside it and the bigger chick begging for food.

“In the end, I noticed that the parents were still keeping an eye on us and the chick, so I decided to put it back [into the nest]. By noon, the parents have encouraged the chick to leave the nest and it has been moving around the territory. Chick looks in very good spirit and healthy. Letting the parents do their job now.

“I don’t think they will move far. There are other pairs of birds staking out their territory and will attack and not tolerate any intrusion.”

Jeremy Lee
Singapore
12th May 2010

Mike Tan a.k.a. woof encountered a Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala) excavating a roosting-nesting cavity in November-December 2009 (above left). The small cavity in the tree trunk was significantly enlarged within a fortnight as the barbet worked furiously at it (above right). Once the cavity was completed, the barbet returned nightly to roost in it (below left).

Ownership of a nesting hole does not last long in Singapore where there is a shortage of such cavities and competition for occupancy is intense. After all, very few birds are capable of creating a fresh nesting cavity. And natural cavities are few and far between, considering that old and rotting trees are constantly being removed in urban areas. In the forest such trees eventually collapse.

Before long the Coppersmith Barbet was evicted from the cavity it excavated by a pair of Asian Glossy Starlings (Aplonis panayensis). The starlings were seen cleaning up its newly acquired home (above right).

This post is a cooperative effort between NaturePixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.