“East or West, Home is the Best” – home ensures safety. It is not only for us, but also for our feathered friends. Birds construct their safe haven to prevent their eggs from susceptible predation and for this, their architectural skills are in favour. These designers inspire us with their envious collection of exteriors and interiors, like cup nests, mud nests, burrow nests, tree hole nests, stick nests, ground nests, suspended cup nests, suspended nests, etc.
In SACON campus, since early December 2015, a pair of White-cheeked Barbet Megalaima viridis attempts to secure a home, as their breeding season commences from December. This pair were in search of a dead branch of a tree near the laboratory block and near SACON main office. They started their excavation process in Acacia polyacantha actively for few days, and in between they didn’t miss a chance to visit a nearby dead stump and finally satisfied with the former one. Barbets are tree hole nesters that construct their home unique of its kind similar to its allies – woodpeckers.
Two barbets in action
Both male and female equally took part in nest construction, a sign of courtship behaviour. Both the partners spent almost equally 5-7 minutes, sometimes one of them does for 11 minutes at a continuous stretch, stopping in between to give attentive ears for any minute disturbance. The frequency of strokes against the wood decreases as an individual makes continuous effort for more than 7 min. Most of the time the cooperation is clearly evident, especially during a swap of excavating swap, i.e., at the same moment the working partner relieves and the other comes to the action spot. At times, the worker stopped in between and looked around for its mate to take charge. When one is chiselling out the wood, the other sits vigilantly nearby. At an instance, both birds participated in this arduous task of making two different holes in the same tree, at the same time.
Four excavated holes (marked in arrows)
Mostly, barbets make their nest at the height of about 25m, however here the prominent nest attempt was noted at 8m height. They tried to make several nests and there are 4 visible nest attempts in the same branch, among which one is with a complete exterior. As these birds prefer dead branch or tree, the availability of the same in shorter heights will entice them to make one at this noticeable height.
This barbet partners put forth this exhaustive effort in procuring a nest. As it is acknowledged, that ‘hard work never fails’, well, it all depends on their successful fledglings.
Solaipaadi 