The Tailor Bird for WBW

A tiny bird that's sure to make its presence known is the tailorbird. It's hard to photograph them since they are constantly on the move and love to hop between the tangled branches of trees. But this morning I was happy to see one on the Areca palm, happy that there were no branches obstructing the view. See the lovely olive green on its back. The bird has a pale chest and black patches on the neck. The tail is long and the legs are pinkish in colour.

The tailor bird gets its name from the nests they make. The edges of large leaves are 'sewn' together with plant fibre or spider silk to make a cradle in which the actual nest is built. Their diet consists of insects, berries, and nectar.

Between the thorny branches of the Indian jujube tree

To see more of our feathered friends, head over to 

http://pineriverreview.blogspot.in/ . I hope everyone's week is going great!

Nests

I was going through some of my old folders and found quite a few pictures of nests. I thought I'd share some of these with you. The first picture is from a park in the outskirts of my hometown. The place has a small orchard of oranges and pineapple plants. I wonder to which bird this nest belonged to, right on the top of the plant, exposed to the elements and danger. So unlike the crow's nest (pictured below) high up on the Indian Jujube tree in my sister's garden.

Around this time of the year, these tiny wasps become very active. I found this lot busy building a nest on the underside of a canavalia bean leaf in my backyard.

On a walk in a holiday resort not too far from the city, I came across this ant's nest. Leaves sewn up into a ball. I can imagine the activity inside. The picture below shows lizard eggs that I came across while loosening the soil in one of my pots. I didn't think that one of my containers would also be a a lizard's nest! They were all intact and I left them buried in the soil. That was in April. when I went to check them about a week ago, only remains of the 'shells' were left. Not too sure about the 'shell' part because they are more like plastic. But I'm sure the latest additions to the wildlife count in my garden are gorging on insect cuisine!

And talking about birds' nests, it's only fair that I include this picture of the Bird's Nest fern/ Asplenium nidus growing wild in my mother's garden. The large fronds unfurl from the centre of the plant giving it a nest-like appearance, hence the name.

And a few pictures of the weaver birds' nests can be seen on my other blog. Here's the link----------------- 

http://kanak7.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/landscapes/

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. ~ William Blake

Something To Crow About!:)

Among all the common birds that I see, the crow is the one that I usually do not bother to take a second look or photograph. But sometimes that changes. Like the day I was at my sister's (where I got the bug in my last post). I was actually hoping to see some dragonflies and get some good shots when this crow fell on the Sleeping Hibiscus bush. It didn't look that much of a fledgling but it faltered and flapped about before it unceremoniously  flew/fell to the ground. There was a lot of raucous cawing from the Indian Jujube tree (picture below) as all the mother hens crows flew in circles. With that kind of encouragement the learner made its way, maybe back to the nest. You can't tell which is which when it's a murder of crows!

But sometimes, sights like these make you feel that it's worth taking some shots. Silhouetted against the afternoon sky whether at rest or in flight, I'm glad to capture these crows!