Dave Culley recently sent images of the Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) nesting in his garden in Cheshire, England. He has been monitoring the pair for some time now. These images here are of the 2008 nesting.

The brood of five chicks is seen above at 12 days old. The other image (below) shows the female sheltering the chicks from the rain.

The female is just starting to hunt with the male, now that the chicks are older. Prior to this the male was hunting, bringing food to feed the female and the chicks.

The male is seen with his prey, preening himself after a bout of hunting (above).

Check out Dave’s webpage HERE.

Most birders know that the female hornbill seals herself inside a tree cavity when she is ready to lay her eggs. But how many have actually witnessed the hornbill breaking out of its cavity when the chicks inside are ready to leave the nest?

Let alone document the stages?

It has to be left to a photographer to undertake the assignment. Dr Eric Tan, an avid nature (bird) photographer, was at Pulau Ubin at the right time when the female Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) was breaking out of her nest. He meticulously documented the various stages and is here sharing them with everyone.

When the female is ready to lay her eggs, she enters the nest cavity, usually in a tree trunk. The male then brings her mud that she mixes with her faeces and mashed fruits to seal the entrance until only a narrow opening is left (above).

The female then begins to pull out her wing and tail feathers and then lays her eggs. The male will, in the meantime, delivers food for her and her chicks (above).

Once the chicks are ready to fledge, she will start breaking out of the cavity. This seal is then brick-hard and generally impenetrable from the outside. She needs to use her bill like a pickaxe to slowly break down the seal. As the seal slowly breaks down and the entrance enlarges, she needs to squeeze herself out. First her large bill and casque appear, then her head pops out (above, top row). Next, one of her shoulders pushes out, followed by the wing. Once one of her wings is free, she emerges partially before becoming totally free to immediately fly off (above, bottom row).

The chicks will then be enticed to leave the nest by the adults not bringing them food. As the chicks are not of uniform age when the female breaks out, the questions that need to be answered are: 1. Does the female re-seals the nest? 2. Do the chicks take over the job? 3. Is the entrance left unsealed? 4. Who returns to feed the remaining chick/s, the male or the female? There is obviously a need for further observations.

The sealing of the female inside the cavity provides security from predators, prevents the nesting cavity from being flooded and keeps off competitors – other hornbills that may otherwise try to evict the occupants for their own use. However, Kinnarid & O’Brien (2007), “…believe that nest-sealing evolved as a female strategy to ensure male fidelity.” With the male kept busy foraging for himself as well as for his mate and later the chicks, he would have no time to indulge in extra-pair copulations or maintain another female sealed in another cavity.

Reference:
Kinnarid, M. F. & O’Brien, T. G. (2007). The ecology and conservation of Asian hornbills: Farmers of the forest. University of Chicago Press.

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

“On 28/6/08 morning while I was taking pictures around the vacant land somewhere along the Kadaloor LRT Station in Punggol, I came across a dugout on the sandy ground,” wrote Hourman (left).

“As I approached I saw two juvenile birds near the entrance of the hole (left bottom). The moment they noticed my presence, they started backtracking into it. The hole wasn’t that deep because they could still be seen when they finally stopped, and the two crammed together (below).

“The dugout was too big to be dug by the adult. I believed it’s more like the work of feral dogs I saw around. The juveniles didn’t look like some water birds, so I find it strange that they nested on sandy ground. It will be great if BESG can ID the juveniles.”

The image was sent to our bird specialist, R. Subaraj who wrote: “Could they be juvenile Blue-throated Bee-eaters? The only colourful species, off the top of my head, that nests in holes on sandy ground or slopes is this bee-eater.”

All bee-eaters are earth-hole nesters, excavating their own tunnels that end with an egg chamber at the end. Rarely do they use a ready-made rodent’s burrow

Reference:
Fry, C.H. (2001). Family Meropidae (Bee-eaters). Pp. 286-341 in: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. & Sargatal, J. eds. (2001). Handbook of the birds of the world. Vol. 6. Mousebirds to Hornbills. Barcelona: Lynx Editions.

This Mountain Fulvetta (Alcippe peracensis), a shy montane forest babbler, was photographed in Frasers’ Hill, Malaysia in May 2008 with a long piece of fibre in its bill. As with most babblers, it is generally difficult to locate, let alone photograph. Besides being shy, it moves around rather fast. To have an image of it with a piece of nesting material is quite an achievement.

The nest is not often seen. It is an open cup of leaves attached to horizontal stems. The outer layer is usually covered with bryophytes while the inner cup is lined with fibres.

The bird was obviously in its final stage of nest building as it was collecting fibres.

Image by Adrian Lim.

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

Mike Tan a.k.a. woof documented the nesting of the Brown-capped Woodpecker, also known as Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker (Dendrocopus moluccensis) in May 2008.

A common resident in Malaysia and Singapore, the bird excavates a 15-30 cm deep tunnel in a dead or rotting tree branch or trunk, leaving a small entrance of about 4 cm wide. Both adults indulge in the excavation.

Mike noticed the parent appearing at the entrance of the nest on 16th May 2008 (left). After several days when the parents fed a chick inside the nest cavity, the latter finally made it appearance on 9th June (below left). Subsequently the parents fed the chick at the cavity entrance (below right).

The chick fledged on 13 June.

There appears to be a natural overhang around the upper half of the cavity entrance, not seen in the top image when the nest was just excavated. This looks suspiciously like the reproductive structure of a bracket fungus, possibly (Ganoderma sp.), closely allied to the ling chi in Chinese traditional medicine. The growth of the fungus was possible because the tree was probably dead.

All images by Mike Tan.

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