On 29th July 2012, Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS came across a few Java Sparrows (Lonchura oryzivora) feeding along the road when he and his wife were out cycling at around 7.30 in the morning.
They returned on the morning of 11th August and encountered four feeding on grass seeds (above).
“Then there was conflict which was not easy to understand. One adult would feed another as in courtship feeding (above and video below). And then there would be a squabble between them. Two adult would ‘gang up’ against a third as though there was a battle for a mate. In captivity it is recognised that there was post copulation aggression (Wells 2007),” reported Amar. “Another explanation might be that these are a family group and two of the young have reached adult status but still begging for food, as I am sure many of us have seen over the years in other species.”
“…a good recording of calls via the video (bump up the volume) and have extracted two types of calls here (amplified and noise reduction) – the first part of the clip is the squabbling calls (a rapid chittering call) followed by the normal calls made which are high pitched chirps” – HERE.
Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
September 2012
