Black Kite and the chicks Part 2

Starting off with a comment I got from Mr K Parthasarathi in Part One of the Black Kite. Nature abounds with beauty, if only we observe keenly to the minute details. One need not go to forests or sanctuaries for watching the birds as they reside around our houses also. It just calls for an abiding interest. Looking for the second video soon. I know this second part got delayed. The main reason was that I was busy with some other assignments. So here goes: The young ones were growing up pretty fast and the parents were getting more and more protective about them.

I could have got better shots of the nest from the terrace, but stopped venturing there as the parents were getting the wrong idea that I was a threat to the young ones.

The male and the female made regular sorties to feed the young ones.

While observing the kite I couldn't help notice some of the other birds that visited the tree. Like this Indian Golden Oriole.

The bee eater turns up early morning and they are my favourite

This female Koel was looking menacing

The coppersmith was always up there on the wire reciting her tuk tuk at regular intervals.

I have seen the common mynah but this one looked different and after looking it up in the Bird book, I realized that this is the Brahminy Mynah.

These fan tail birds keep flitting from branch to branch and are very fast, making it difficult to click them. What I like about them is their sweet long bird call (20:57)

The sunbird as usual was good with her acrobatic tricks.

I was lucky enough to spot a sparrow. Yes, the common sparrow is not so common nowadays.

The crow kept looking at me as if to say "why don't you click me?"

When you have time just observe the crows and see how smart they are. (R K Laxman's favorite past time was to sketch the crows) The parrot was not far from the nest and observed the activity

He finally decided to savour the seeds from the pods of the same tree

While filming all this, the sound of the birds chirping filled up my sound track. Reminded me of what I read somewhere....... if you want to hear the sound of the bird, don't buy a cage, plant a tree. Meanwhile the feeding went on and you can see that one of them is waiting for his turn to be fed

There was some unseasonal rains and that caught the parents off guard. I mean the nesting season is well before the monsoon so that the young ones fly off before the monsoon. But this storm was really lashing out threatening to dislodge the nest. The mother bird tried her best to protect the young ones under her wings. After the storm was over this is what I captured. (12:00)

The next day was bright and sunny. While observing the young ones I was wondering about some of the traits that the young ones pick up. Like house keeping. When the chicks want to relieve themselves, they will slowly walk backwards to the end of the nest, aim and shoot out of the nest, thereby keeping the nest clean. I don't think they were potty trained by the parents, so I presume it is an inherited behaviour. (9:46 and 17:22)

The young ones liked to explore the surroundings when the parents were not around.

Meanwhile there was romance brewing on the adjacent tree between two Coucals (Bharadwaj) The nest on that tree is an old crow’s nest.

Coming back to the Black Kite, I found that they were more anxious about the young ones

I even found one of them dozing off during the day time. (26:10)

There was a squirrel who liked the thrill of jumping from one tree to the next one.

As the days progressed I found that only one chick was active or rather only one head was popping up.

After waiting for one more day I took a risk and went and peeped from the terrace. My fears were confirmed as I found the chick lying listless in the nest. It was probably dead. The mother kite did not give up hope and kept nudging and goading the listless one. By evening she must have realised what has happened and she picked up the carcass from the nest and threw it in a thicket not far away from the tree. The action was partially caught by my camera (36:52) Notice how we call them a chick or “young one” but the moment they are dead we refer to them as carcass. The part where I mentioned earlier that the chick was caught dozing off, maybe he was not well and couldn’t hold his head straight. The sad part was that the next day the same thing happened with the second chick. I was wondering, what must have gone wrong that both the chicks died within twenty four hours of each other. Was it food poisoning? Or was it due to the unseasonal rains which made them fall sick. I was hoping to capture the whole life cycle and present it as a cheerful event to the already gloomy world, but it was not to be. Life does not go as planned. This was one of the reasons I was putting off writing the second part. I am leaving these last two pics here without any comments.

The video was shot a little at a time on a daily basis and put together without much editing. So it may be a little lengthy, more like a documentary of the nest.

Never a dull moment

The grey Langur paid us a visit the other day. In fact there were two of them. How I came to know about it was by the distress call of the Koel. To add to this the crows were all excited and were concentrating on the mango tree.   I had a closer look at the tree. After carefully scanning through the gaps in the tree, I found this cute face looking back at me. 

Had enough time to grab my camera and take some quick shots.

The crows were getting really agitated (and frustrated) as they could not swoop down on them. The second line of attackers were waiting above for action:

Meanwhile our friends decided to change location and descended on our garden. One of them perched on the bamboo scaffold and relished our flat bean shoots. 

Later while checking the net, I found that Langurs are indeed known as “leaf eating monkeys” as they feed mostly on leaves.  Other than leaves they eat fruits, shoots, roots, seeds, flowers, grass.

While enjoying the shoots, I saw him eyeing the Dutchman’s pipe (or queen of the night) flowers at the other end of the garden. I presume he gave up the idea, probably guessing that that they were the ‘already bloomed ones’ (these flowers bloom once a year and that too in the night)

The front line attackers had a clear target now and resumed their attack.  

Our friends now moved on to the adjacent tree and found the flowers on this tree really delicious. (this is the same tree on which the bats come at dusk during this season)

I suppose they had their fill on that tree and moved away, as the concentration of the crows shifted away from our house.

With some greenery around the house, there is never a dull moment.

I did manage to take some video footing too and you can see it here: