{"id":69477,"date":"2023-07-05T13:01:28","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T05:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/?p=69477"},"modified":"2023-07-05T14:08:58","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T06:08:58","slug":"new-food-item-for-ruby-cheeked-sunbird-chalcoparia-singalensis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/2023\/07\/05\/new-food-item-for-ruby-cheeked-sunbird-chalcoparia-singalensis\/","title":{"rendered":"New Food Item for Ruby-cheeked Sunbird Chalcoparia singalensis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was watching a family of five Ruby-cheeked Sunbirds Chalcoparia singalensis<\/em> on 3rd July 2023, at the Kledang-Saiong Forest Reserve, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, when I saw the adult male feeding on a new food item.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The adult was feeding on the Glochidion obscurum<\/em> fruit. The Glochidion obscurum<\/em> is a tree that can grow to 15 m tall. It has 0.1 cm long fruit which splits open when mature, revealing 12-14 ribbed capsules which contain seeds with red arils. The adult male stopped at a fruit that has a small opening and proceeded to open it further. The bird then fed on the red arils (see Image 1 and 2). The food item was not offered to the three juveniles that were largely self-feeding.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Image 1: Adult male Ruby-cheeked Sunbird feeding on arils of Glochidion obscurum fruit<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Image 2: Close up feeding behaviour<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Much of the feeding of this family unit was in classical Ruby-cheeked Sunbird style of looking for invertebrates \/ insects by exploring or opening closed leaves (see Image 3) as well as looking under foliage.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Image 3: Juvenile Ruby-cheeked Sunbird exploring dead, closed leaves for invertebrates and insects<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

In the past I have often observed Oriental Magpie-Robins Copsychus saularis<\/em> (image 4) and Yellow-vented Bulbuls Pycnonotus goiavier<\/em> (image 5) also feeding on the red arils of the Glochidion obscurum<\/em> fruit. Oriental Magpie-Robins tend to feed on fallen arils.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Image 4: Oriental Magpie-Robin feeding on arils of Glochidion obscurum fruit<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Image 5: Yellow-vented Bulbul feeding on aril of Glochidion obscurum fruit<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It is interesting that none of these birds eat the outer fleshy fruit casing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference:
Amar-Singh HSS. (2010) Feeding habits and behaviour of the Ruby-cheeked Sunbird Chalcoparia singalensis in Perak, Malaysia. BirdingASIA 14: 46\u201351<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was watching a family of five Ruby-cheeked Sunbirds Chalcoparia singalensis on 3rd July 2023, at the Kledang-Saiong Forest Reserve, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, when I saw the adult male feeding on a new food item. The adult was feeding on the Glochidion obscurum fruit. The Glochidion obscurum is a tree that can grow to 15 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":69482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1907,1154,1122,59,18,82,1819],"tags":[1810,1909,1911,455],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69485,"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69477\/revisions\/69485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/besgroup.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}