Notice the flower stalk woven naturally into the nest.
Each day brings with it its share of surprises, today I decided to go to a long forgotten (by me) park for a walk. This place is like a forest with trees growing naturally, it is supposed to taken care of by the forest department. Well it did start of quite well three years ago when it was being developed, during the pandemic this natural park has turned into a neglected and overgrown jungle. Nonetheless, it does give one the feel of walking in a forest right in the middle of the city.
I was hoping to see a wide variety of birds today as I ventured into the park. Sadly there were not many birds that I could see. I could hear a whole lot of birds songs, but no birds in sight. Since it is thickly forested area it is hard to get deep into this rather overgrown forest to see the birds. The only birds I got to see were the sun birds. Not really, These are tiny birds and hardly visible among the branches of the tall trees.
A dead tree covered by some kind of vine.
I did get to see a few bird's nests. Each so different yet made by the same sun birds. Sun birds seem to dislike the idea of reusing their nest, but they reuse the basic material to create another new one. One of the nest I saw was made of bits of plastic and other natural fibers. I guess the plastic was to insulate the babies from the cold and the rain, I am not sure. Plastic has been banned here for a couple of years now, so it is hard to see plastic bags lying around as they did a few years ago. Obviously the birds haven't banned plastic in their world as yet lol.
Enlarge to see the image clearly
There was a little surprise waiting for me in one of the nests. Since it was high up in the tree, at least about forty feet off the ground I couldn't see what was inside. Later I did see something moving inside and the images showed that there are a couple of baby birds inside the nest.
Another of these tiny nests was surrounded by cobwebs. I assumed that it was an old uninhabited nest and I was surprised to see a sun bird fly out of the nest. I waited for a long time for the bird to return to the nest but nothing happened and I had to move on.
The other surprises that awaited me were some strange looking trees. They looked like they were clad in army fatigues. I have never seen the likes of them before. Have you?
Army fatigues
There was this hole in the ground right next to a tree. This one looked like a snake hole or maybe a rat hole which the snakes usurp. It was covered with fine webbing and that seemed very strange to me.
There were squirrels chattering and scrambling all over the trees. I caught a couple of them on the roof of a building meant to be a shelter for the walkers when it rains. They were chasing each other that it was almost impossible to capture them with my camera.
I did mange a few images. Here is one of them of the little guy eating some wild figs I guess.
There was a juvenile white faced barbet which was hard to photograph for two reasons - one it was at a distance and there was no way of getting near it and there wasn't enough light at that time of the morning.
There were some strange looking fruits on a vine. It looked weird almost like an image out of some witches forest. Maybe it was just the light that gave me this creepy feeling.
A dense growth of fungi on which there was a play of lights and shadows which made me go click, click, click. Everything seemed kind of new to me. Albeit the disappointment of not being able to see the birds I thought I would see here I did get to see some strange sights this Monday morning.
Thanks for having come thus far. This means a lot to me as your time is precious. I appreciate your support and interest.
Have a great day!