Travails; the choice of word for the title may sound strange. Well, you will understand as you read on this post.

I was walking out of my house through the front gate at around 10am on a Saturday in late March. As I did so, I noticed a sudden flutter followed by the typical calls of a Purple-rumped Sunbird. Hmm, interesting I thought. I however did not have time to investigate further as I was going on an errand. Reaching back home at noon, the same thing happened as I walked in through the front gate. Now this certainly had me curious. There was no way I was not going to investigate this further, especially since it involved birds 😀 .

There it was, a nest under construction by a female Purple-rumped Sunbird on a low hanging branch of a Bougainville just above the front gate! Curious location I thought, given that it was in plain sight and so easily accessible to any human. Well, actually not so obvious to a human sight; I had passed through the gate so many times over the last week and I had not noticed the nest being built.

The nest was in its mid stage of build, I guessed.

It clearly had a long way to go; the “hole” and the portions of the back were yet to be constructed. I stood near at the main door of my house (a reasonable distance from the nest) and started the observe.

The female kept making sorties to gather nesting material. It came back with the material every 5 – 10 minutes and carefully “stuck” it to “right” place in the nest. If there happened to be a human walking by on the road or standing near the nest, the female would delay its arrival. It always seemed to call as it came to the nest. Once the “intruding” human had moved away, it flew straight into the nest and got busy. Here are some pictures I took:

I did not notice any male Purple-rumped Sunbird visit or accompany the female. The construction for the day was done by around 4PM.

The construction carried on for another 5 days. By this time, I guessed the nest had almost got completed, as the visits by the female sunbird became infrequent.

Once I saw a female flying to the nest, sit at the opening and peer into it. Almost immediately, another female came to the nest. The one already there flew off. I suspected that the first one which had come, was an intruder. The second female then went into the nest and started making adjustments to the nest.

The next day, I did not see the female sunbird visit the nest at all. This is based on the limited period that I was able to observe the nest. No calls, like the ones I had heard when it was building the nest, also were not heard. Hmm, was this a way for the female to assess the safety of the location it had chosen for the nest, I wondered.

The following day was interesting. The visits by the female was still infrequent. However, each time it did, there was a male also visiting at the same time. The male never came to the nest itself. Rather it perched on a branch nearby. Was this the pair? Each time the female visited, it would tuck itself inside the nest and seemed to make adjustments to make the insides comfortable. I suspected that the nest was going to be continuously occupied soon.

And that is what happened two days later 🙂 . The female was seen sitting in the nest in the morning and evenings. My observation window during the days were limited, as I had to go to work. Here is a photo from the morning when it occupied the nest.

The female was cautious in the day time. Any one approaching near its nest, be it a person walking on the road behind it, or someone walking best the nest as they passed through the front gate, had the female immediately fly out of the nest. It would disappear. But I was certain that it was somewhere close by. But there were also occasions when it would leave the nest without any “disturbing” it. And it would not return for quite a while. I guessed that it was out to feed. There was a few occasions where I saw it head out of the nest and perch on a nearby branch, this time preening itself. Here is a picture of it doing so:

In the evening, the bird was very tolerant. It would hardly ever leave the nest, even as we passed close to the nest, through the gate. I guess its sleeping cycles were taking over. I was able to photograph it during the evenings more easily.

On a Sunday morning, as I went passed through the front gate at 5:40am, the bird did not fly out of the nest. So it seemed that it was only during daylight that it was more cautious of people being nearby.

15 days since I saw it occupying the nest on a regular basis, I was expecting to see the chicks hatch anytime; atleast the estimate was based on a study paper that I had read over the internet. But there was still not sign of it 😦 .

2 days later brought terrible news. I got a call from my wife late afternoon when I was in office. She said that it was raining heavily at my house and that the nest had fallen on the ground owing to the strong winds. She wanted to know what she should do. I asked her to take the nest and keep it in a dry spot near our house. I would try and re-attach it to the branch once I reached home. But it was not to be. When I reached home a couple of hours later, I could see a broken egg shell on the ground. The nest had torn off from the top. There was no way to re-attach it back on the branch. Moreover I felt that it would not do any good, as the egg had been broken. Sadly I placed the nest to one side and came to terms that the nesting had failed for this female this time around 😥 .

This was the third instance of failed nesting that I had witnessed on a Purple-rumped Sunbird over three years. The last one had been on another tree around our garden. I also heard similar experience from another acquaintance. I guess now you must know the reason I chose the word “travails” for the title of this post.

Video

I was able to capture on video, parts of the nest building process as well as when it was sitting in the nest (both in the day time and at dusk). I also happened to be around when it left the nest to preen.

Other Articles on Nesting

In case you are interested in seeing other posts related to bird breeding, here are others that I have written on: Parenting in Bonell’s Eagles, Witnessing Brood Parasitism, Nesting of Common Tailorbird