For a few days in mid-March, a female Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker (Dicaeum cruentatum) visited my potted Surinam cherry (Eugenia uniflora) that was placed in front of my bedroom window (below left). The visits came a few times in the morning and afternoon. Each visit was announced by her loud metallic tik-tik-tik that alerted me to her presence. The flowerpecker moved from branch to branch in rapid succession, picking up something small off the branches.
Each visit lasted less than ten seconds, with the flowerpecker picking up something 10 or more times. It appeared to be foraging insects.
Curious, I examined the slender branches but found no insects. However, covering the branches were tiny flakes of thin bark (above right). The flowerpecker was obviously picking up the tiny pieces of bark to line the nest chamber of the nest she was building LINK.
Checking on past posts in the BESG website, I came across another flowerpecker collecting bark pieces from branches of other trees LINK.
YC Wee
Singapore
April 2013
