Another family of Yellow-vented Bulbuls being raised in our garden. Not sure how many young, as I don’t want to disturb the surrounding leaves. The first photo shows the back of the head and beak of a fledgling in the nest in the gingers.
The second photo shows the parent, giving me the eye as I photograph it from the side verandah. These birds are very urban, and often choose nesting sites as close as possible to human contact, perhaps because this offers safety from other predators. I’ve often had them nest in pot plants.
The third photo shows how protected the nest is.
Here is our side verandah from inside, looking at the gingers where the nest is. As you can imagine, I am often hanging clothes within feet of the nest.
And here, taken from the outside, to the left of the grille behind the palm, is the ginger plant that contains the nest.
These pics remind me of my childhood.
The bulbuls nested anywhere, were notoriously careless (or silly) parents, and the chicks had a high mortality rate.
I finally got fed up of stepping into the garden to find chicks fallen from the nest being eaten alive by ants… and plugged all 'nestable' nooks and corners of our garden.
The bulbul parents in your garden seem pretty smart though, the chick looks secure.
This pair of bulbuls build at least two nests a year, laying two eggs each time. The maximum known longevity of a YV Bulbul is 17 years. They are sexually mature at one year old. So if they raised all their young to maturity, in 17 years one pair would have almost 70 offspring and they would all have young…imagine the population explosion! Of course, this doesn't happen. Most young birds die. That's the cruel nature of things…
In other words, it doesn't do to get too upset by the death of individuals in the bird world. It's the way things are.
Much better kind of nest than the one you had in your bathroom LOL
When you refer to gingers, are we talking edible ginger here?
No, it's not edible. Not because it's poisonous, it's just not tasty. Some of these forest gingers are used for perfumes and bath salts and that sort of stuff, though. There are lots and lots of different varieties. One of my husband's hobbies…