Earlier posts: 1. Introduction.
The first day (2nd January 2018) of nest building was when the female Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker (Dicaeum cruentatum) was interrupted when she was tying elongated plant materials around the axis of a compound leaf of the Belimbing tree (Averrhoa bilimbi) LINK.
The next morning (day two, 3rd January) I set up my video-cam to document the progress. The female flowerpecker was darting in and out of the site all the time. During the 90 minutes-long video recording, she made a total of 33 visits, bringing nesting materials with her and weaving them to the hanging mass. She spent between 5-20 seconds at the site and returned after 20 seconds to 3 minutes. On average, she made 22 visits per hour. She usually flew in, landed on a nearby leaf and paused to look around to see whether her arrival was noticed by anyone or any predator. She then flew to the nearby mass of dried hanging plant materials, weaved in her contribution and immediately flew off. At times, she flew direct to the hanging mass. A few times there were no apparent materials brought in or was the material too small to be apparent?
The male on the other hand made a single visit (below). He did not bring any nesting material but simply inspected the incomplete nest before flying off.
An edited video clip can be viewed below:
YC Wee
Singapore
7th January 2018
