The nesting sunbirds!

My grandparents from Vellore called and told me about a new nest that a couple of Purple rumped Sunbirds had built in our house. I immediately traveled there, as this was a rare opportunity! When I went there and saw the nest, I was elated. The nest was hanging from Bougainvilla tree within our compound. I spent almost 3 whole days camping just a few feet away from the nest, observing them and clicking a lot of pics!

The nest itself was so beautiful. I kept admiring the intelligence of these tiny birds. The nest had windows and a tiny little shade above the entrance (to prevent rain water from falling in to the nest). The windows were covered with translucent plastic sheets which wouldn't allow direct sunlight into the nest, but would still enable proper heat and lighting! The nest was built hanging from a tender branch, away from any walls or solid branches. This would prevent the threat from Predators like cats, as the branch wouldn't support the cat's weight, and the distance would prevent a cat from leaping and attacking the fledgelings!

The male and female sunbirds kept visiting the nest with bits of plastic, coir etc. Though the eggs were already laid in the nest, they kept improving the nest. The birds which were uncomfortable with my presence, got used to me within just an hour or so. After that, they just didn't bother though I was sitting very close to the nest. They kept flying in and out of the nest, carrying building materials and improving the nest. At around 6pm everyday, the female sunbird returned to the nest and stayed there till dawn. The male, I think stayed somewhere else, as there wouldn't have been enough space for the two of them ;)

I was there just at the right time, I guess, as I started hearing very different kind of calls on the third day. The eggs had hatched. Both the parents kept bringing in food for their kids and kept feeding them. They also kept removing the excreta from the nest from time to time. What's really interesting was the calls that they made. I never knew Sunbirds had so many different calling patterns as I'd only heard the short tweet that they usually make. After the eggs hatched, the parents made wide variety of calls at different points of time - one soft call when at the nest, one loud trilling call just before coming close to the nest, another warning call.

I didn't want to disturb the birds, especially the young ones. Hence, I don't have pics of the eggs or the fledgelings. But, here are the pics of the parents. The one on the left is the female and the one on the right is the male.

It was a wonderful experience observing these birds so closely and clicking pics!