Tan Teo Seng brought me what looked like a larger than usual munia’s nest (1, 2) on 7th July 2008. It had two entrances, one above, the other below. It was inadvertently cut off when his worker did some heavy pruning of his Duranta erecta shrub in his garden in Johor, Malaysia.

The structure was actually two nests, built side by side. The upper was 13 x 19 cm with an opening diameter of 3.5 cm; the lower 12 x 16 cm with a 3 cm opening. Both were ovals, the openings overhung with isolated pieces of grass inflorescence stalks.

After measurements the nests were left on a table in the porch. The top nest was empty as I could see the inside. The bottom nest appeared to be empty also.

In the evening I suddenly heard the chattering of what appeared to be a number of chicks begging for food. The sound appeared to come from the porch roof. As suddenly as it started, the sound ended a few minutes later. I was to hear the chirping on and off the next day. However, I could not locate the nesting area nor see and adult birds approaching to feed the chicks.

On the morning of 9th July, as I was standing by the two nests on the low table, the chirping suddenly started. Again it appeared to come from above. Imagine my surprise when I happened to glance at the nests and saw a chick at the entrance begging for food.

Only then did I realise that the chirping came from one of the two nests. The chicks moved out of the nest entrance to reveal another. The second chick was persuaded to emerge. There was a third but it appeared stuck inside. Only by carefully cutting the nest did I manage to extract it. There were a fourth, a fifth and a sixth. All were crammed inside the 7 x 8 cm nesting space and the cramming obviously caused the sixth and smallest chick to die. The image below (left) shows the five live chicks while the right image the sixth dead chick.

The five chicks were placed in a basin and fed with a liquid mixture of leftover boiled carrot soup. Initially, each chick was hand-held and persuaded to open its bill to accept the liquid food in drops, delivered via a dropper. In subsequent feedings a few of the chicks enthusiastically pushed their throats into the top of the dropper to receive the food.

The chicks were used to huddle together in the tight nest space (bottom left) and when given space to move around in the basin, still huddled together, the larger chicks climbing over the backs of the smaller.

It was easier to feed them thus. As each chick gaped, I was able to place drops of food into its throat. There was always fierce competition to be fed first. All five ate well. After each feed the throat pouch swelled (bottom right).

The scrambling, one on top of the other, apparently caused two other chicks to die on the 10th July, leaving three of the more healthy ones.

Sadly, the remaining three chicks died the next day. Did they die because of the feed? Do they need to be fed solid? Were they weakened because they were left without food during the first two days?

According to Teo Seng, he had earlier observed about six adult munias popping out one by one from the same two nests one evening when he was near the plant. He was not able to confirm from which of the two nests these birds flew out from but he was definite that they flew out of the nest/s. Otherwise all the birds would have flown off together when disturbed.

The literature mention egg dropping by female munias, meaning other females are prone to lay their eggs in an active nest. Normally about six eggs are laid per nest.

Another question that needs to be answered is whether munias roost inside empty nests. And how many birds can a nest accommodate for roosting. Field ornithologist Wang Luan Keng confirms that roosting in empty nests does occur. She further revealed that there may also be nest parasitism but this obviously did not happen here as all six chicks looked alike.

Lee Tiah Khee has been keeping watch on a pair of Red-wattled Lapwing (Vanellus indicus) at the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve since late May 2008 (above).

In early June he documented the two adults taking turns incubating the three eggs (below). Then he returned to the site on 14th June. It was raining heavily then but the pair was still incubating the eggs.

Two days later when he next visited, hoping to see the chicks, he was disappointed to find only two eggs left. That evening, these remaining two eggs also disappeared.

The eggs must have been predated somehow.

This lapwing is a rare resident. However, the population is slowly increasing as more sightings and nesting have been reported.

All images by Lee Tiah Khee, taken 50m away with a 800mm lens with a x2 converter attached.

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

Prof Cheong Loong Fah chanced upon our post on Nest Raiding in the Singapore Botanic Gardens and shares his experience about Black-naped Orioles (Oriolus chinensis) (left top) raiding the nest of the Pied Triller (Lalage nigra) (left bottom):

“I once had a pair of Pied Trillers nesting in front of my house. One day, a Black-naped Oriole spotted the nest and tried to raid it. The oriole was chased off by one of the Pied Trillers quite vigorously; the fight was quite fierce and with full body contact between the two birds.

“However, on the next day, the original intruder (I suppose) brought back a gang and these four orioles that then destroyed the nest. The Pied Trillers were powerless to stop this destruction.

“I didn’t manage to see if they were feeding on the eggs; it just seemed wanton destruction to me then. The Pied Triller pair came back to the nesting site the next day and lingered around, but after that never came back.”

Another account of the destructive nature of the Black-naped Oriole… see related posts below.

Images by Susan Wong (Pied Triller) and YC (oriole).

The Olive-backed Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis) that was hard at work collecting fibres for weeks from a piece of fabric in front of my house was actually building a nest in the garden of my front neighbour. I did suspect that the bird was building her nest there as she would fly immediately into the compound after collecting a few strands of fibres. But I paid scant attention as these nests are common in urban and suburban gardens, even in the small balcony gardens of high-rise condominiums.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when my neighbour Sheng Lau mentioned to me on 9th February 2008 that the nest was totally destroyed a few days back.

Apparently, five Long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) descended onto the scene one day and one of the macaques simply ripped the nest from the branch and threw it away. There were two eggs in the nest but it has not been established whether the eggs were eaten by the macaque.

Another failed nesting by a pair of Olive-backed Sunbirds. Failure due to various causes is common (1, 2, 3, 4) . But all is not lost.

I was surprised to see the female bird hard at work continuing collecting fibres from the same tree in front of my house (left). This time she did not fly directly into my front neighbour’s compound. Instead, she flew into the next house, obviously to restart building her nest elsewhere, hopefully in a safer environment. Does this mean that she will be laying more eggs once the nest is rebuilt?

A persistent female sunbird indeed…

On the morning of 7th November 2007, Tan Teo Seng brought me a cutting of a creeper with a Common Tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius) nest still attached to it. Inside were three damaged eggs.

The nest was attached to a number of aerial roots of the creeper and a single leaf of the climber, an araceous plant. A single dried avocado (Persea americana) leaf was sewn to the leaf of the climber to complete the shell within which the nest was lodged (above left). Copious cobwebs were used in the construction of the nest, as shown in previous posts (1, 2). So good was the camouflage that the gardener did not notice the nest when he trimmed the plants growing along the wall of the porch.

When Teo Seng discovered the gardener’s mistake, he immediately took the nest, still attached to the plant stem and hung it back. There were three small, light bluish eggs covered with various sized chestnut blotches and speckles.

The next day when he examined the nest, he found a small puncture in each of the three eggs. When he handed the nest and contents to me three days later, the openings were large and the eggs empty (left).

A few questions need answers. Did the parent birds returned and punctured the eggs, considering that the nest and eggs were disturbed? Could it be predation? In which case why were the eggs not seriously damaged? Are there any animals capable of causing a small puncture on the egg to extract the contents?

If any reader has an answer, please share with us.

An earlier failed nesting of a pair of tailorbirds was due to the parent birds not feeding the two chicks that eventually died in the nest.

Input by Tan Teo Seng, images by YC.