Nesting - Pied Fantail bird

Nesting - Pied Fantail

The Malaysian Pied Fantail - Phipidura javanica - is a species of bird from the Fantailed family. Pied Fantailed is one of the 47 species in the genus Rhipidura. It hav egot its own nick-nane referred as Murai Gila literally means "Crazy Robin"

This bird is common in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines Singapore Thailand and Vietnam. The bird prefer subtropical or tropical lowland forest but at the some time, a common garden bird from those houses built near to forested area.

This time the pair returned to the old nesting place and the same branch. In the open just 12 feet above the road. I observed that couple dislodged the old nest complete with nesting materials and allowed it to dropped to the ground. Then they started collected new con web and material .

When the nest was completed it was pure white, very well formed tiny cup like a miniature version of the nest made by Swift. Within days, then it slowly discolored from white to pale beige and then brown

Nest building and laying eggs

The nest must have being going for days but this was the first the picture taking started

Looks like hatching would be soon!

2nd last day

Yes! first day saw babies, a pair of them in nest. Eyes still not opened yet

Parent standing guard over nest

The mother brought the feed back. Both chicks were very responsive. Eyes still not opened yet. Through instinct, they know when and how to reach out!

Heavy feeding had started! Most times, one bird will get preferred and grows stronger and faster while the second could be abandoned. Hopefully in this nesting both chicks would come out healthy and equally

Last Day

It has being a very wet day with small breaks in weather, not easy for the parent to collecting ideal food. So this first one look like a fruit

After observing for a while, the chicks though blind at this time remaining in a dormant most times, response to sounds

Some kind of sound that was too soft to be picked up by us. Here is another occasion of false alarm when both chicks kept a stand by pose.

Fledged

Yet another dull and wet day. Though very light drizzle, the surroundings was quite bright. I still have to up the ISO to 1250 to get decent shots

Everything about the nest and chicks were good and normal. Point to note for this day is that the eyes of the chicks still closed

12th Day

This day being a weekend, those working class found time to catch up with this frenzy, there was no chance for the parents to be doing any feeding as it world confirm the existence of the fragile chicks.