ML35126951

Age

Not specified

Sex

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Media notes

Images by AK Raju

Observation details

See, https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/bngbirds/conversations/messages/18992 On 9th morning, we had this rare opportunity to witness feeding by the Forest Owlet pair (see, http://www.indianaturewatch.net/displayimage.php?id=182900). We were looking for the birds within the teak plantation in the Melghat Tiger Reserve, when suddenly spied the male returning with a prey from an adjacent teak patch. Once it landed on a tree close by, we found the male with a mice (or was it a shrew?) dangling from its beak, and very soon, the female, which was much larger in size, landed close to the male and wasted no time in plucking the prey from the male’s beak, paused for a few moments and flew-off. The male looked thoroughly hen-pecked and offered no resistance to the female taking its hard-hunted prey. We were thrilled. We were in fact observing courtship feeding, an activity that strengthens the pair-bond among a breeding pair and this did indicated to us that the female possibly held developing eggs within her and had stopped hunting. In addition, we surmised that it is not far-off that she would lay her clutch of eggs in a tree hallow in the days to come and her young would possibly fledge out of the nest by December-January. While we chatted with the tribal who helped us locate the pair, he said that the male rarely hunted in the patch of teak forest where we sighted the pair. Instead, it foraged in the adjacent patch of forest bordering a field with a mature crop of paddy ready for harvest, where understandably, its principle prey, mice, were abundant and probably fed on abundant paddy grains in the fields. As we observed the pair, it was only the male that called frequently, and only once did the female call-out to the male, and lo-and-behold: the male called back immediately, came and settled next to her in no time. Then, the pair stayed put for the next hour in full view and even the male responded to my call mimic – as I stood in its full view. While the female was an epitome of grace and good behavior and that she did very little once perched, the male was given to a lot of tom-foolery: It would bob up and down, waddle and hunch-back on its perch and even would stretch its neck-up to look around. At times, it would stare at us with an astonishing look, bowing at us, press itself close to the perch and bend forward and gawk at us, as if we were a bunch of aliens from Mars and asking us, more plainly than in words: who we were and what damn business we had in its territory, destroying the solitude that it shared with its beau.

Technical information

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