ML493004551
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
Reached the nest around 6:45 am and saw the female bird at the nest. A large ( at least 5-6 cm long) cream-coloured egg could be seen at the cavity on the side (where earlier down feathers that lined the nest had been seen), some 15-20 cm below the rim of the hollow.. There appeared to be a change in her behaviour from earlier days. Earlier, on entering the nest, she would lie low and only occasionally and briefly her dark, beady eye would spy you with no other part of her body showing up. But today, she was stretching her neck and looking in all directions. She was frequently seen adjusting her position, preening her wing feathers. To add to her anxiety, the pair of Indian Grey Hornbills arrived and one of them briefly landed on the nest cavity 2 m below the top of the stump! They were seen on a nearby dry branches of a neem tree, 7-8 m from the coconut stump. After seeing her behaviour, I suspected something was going to happen today and so I decided to stay back and watch the emergence of the chicks. The female had never felt uncomfortable with my presence and in the past, I had seen her coming back to the nest on three occasions when she would perch on the rim, preening and slowly after 2-3 minutes lower herself into the hollow. But today she was often looking in my direction and I knew she wasn't too happy to see me around. So I shifted my position to the eastern side of the Malli Baavi where the fence with its overgrown creepers proved to be a natural hide. It took a good half-an-hour for her to take the next step. She was, every few minutes, craning her neck and watching if the coast was clear and alternating it with preening (displacement activity?) of her wing feathers. Around 7:18 am she came up and sat on the rim of the hollow, balancing herself gingerly and briefly spread her wings. She seemed to be making sure that there were no potential predators around. But after a minute she went back into the nest. But in a couple of minutes she was back and looked out of the nest and uttered a "mantra" which may well have been the instructions for the chicks to jump (see video clip). All these days I had never heard the female make any sound. She quickly then clambered on to the rim of the nest and looked into the nest when almost immediately the first chick emerged and leaped to a bush some 2-3 m below. A second chick emerged soon after and the female then flew down to the bush. I was ready with my camera on video mode by now and came out into the open to film the remaining chicks come down. The third chick came into my frame as I started the video (see the video clip) and after a brief pause, I noticed the fourth chick attempting to clamber on to the rim of the nest. I saw it jump twice unsuccessfully and on the third attempt, it managed to catch hold of the rim. It looked so beautiful and funny as it had a down feather in its beak as it surveyed the outside world for a brief second before taking the plunge with its puny wing feathers spread out - and it was all over! The dense undergrowth (which I had requested the Rishi Valley School's Estate Department of the School to be left undisturbed) below the nest, the tall paddy growing a metre or so away and the dense bamboo and other vegetation on the bund of the Percolation Tank some 50 m away and the Percolation Tank itself, I presume, would provide the chicks with adequate cover and foraging site for the next few days. How far away the mother would lead her chicks till they became capable of flight and how many of them would actually survive, remains to be seen. The coconut stump remains silent and abandoned after their departure with the infertile egg and a few down feathers as a memory of the month-long vigil by the bird in raising her brood single-handed.
Technical information
- Model
- DC-FZ80
- ISO
- 1000
- Focal length
- 125.5 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/5.6
- Shutter speed
- 0.01 sec
- Dimensions
- 2301 pixels x 3232 pixels
- Original file size
- 2.08 MB