Common Tailorbird

The Common Tailorbird is an Asian songbird common throughout Tiruvannamalai District. This passerine bird is typically found in open farmland, scrubs and gardens. Its song is a loud cheerful towit-towit-towit.

Adult Bird [Photo: J.M.Garg]

It is a small restless bird olive-green in colour with whitish underparts, a rust coloured crown and two elongated pinpointed feathers in the tail. The Common Tailorbird is insectivorous and is particularly attracted to insects and grubs at flowers and also favours flower nectar.

The Tailorbird gets its name from the way its nest is constructed. The passerine bird has a long pointed beak with which it makes tiny holes in leaves. The edges of a large leaf are pierced and sewn together with plant fibre or spider silk to make a cradle in which the actual nest is built.

Stitched Nest

The nest is a deep, soft cup lined with soft materials and is placed in thick foliage and the leaves used to hold the nest have the upper surfaces outwards so that the nest is difficult to spot. It is said that only the female stitches the leaves of the nest.

Nest with young

A juvenile bird

Eating insects at flower buds

This bird’s breeding season is March to December peaking from May to August. The usual clutch is 3-4 eggs reddish or bluish white in colour. The incubation period is about 12–14 days with both male and female feeding the young, and the young birds fledgling in around 14 days. Mortality of eggs and chicks is high due to predators.

Tailorbirds roosting on my verandah

The birds roost alone during the non-breeding season but may roost side-by-side during the breeding season.The roost sites chosen are thin twigs on trees with cover above them and close to human habitation and lights.

This bird is fearless and the Tailorbirds currently visiting my verandah move around within feet of myself and my large dogs as they have taken a particular liking to the above plant for their night-time perch.

To view videos, audios and more photos of the Common Tailorbird, go to this link here:

Asian Paradise-flycatcher

The Asian Paradise-flycatcher, also known as the Common Paradise-flycatcher is a medium sized Passerine bird. Neighbours with a wooded garden mentioned to me that they had a pair of Flycatchers nesting in their garden some years back, but for me this week was my first actual sighting of the beautiful adult white male Asian Paradise Flycatcher.

I spotted the bird at a lily pond near Samudram Erie. The lily pond which is skirted by trees is cool, inviting and enjoys the presence of many birds, and as the Flycatcher is very territorial, may well be its current permanent place of occupation.

I now understand why this bird has been described as looking ‘fairy-like’ as it appeared ethereal in presence with its graceful, darting movements and tail feathers trailing behind it.

Fairy Like Male Adult

The below video is a short take of the bird in flight.







However this beautiful white male bird is in fact similar to the rufous colour of the female in the first few years of its life.

Sub Adult Male Before Colour Change

Female Bird

As a sub-adult the male's head is glossy black with a black crown, crest and eyes and the female is red on the back with a greyish throat and underparts. But as the male adult matures, its rufous plummage moults into white with a central pair of tail feathers growing into 30 cm long streamers. The function of the long tail is assumed to be related to sexual selection, with females choosing males based on the length of the tail.

Adult Male After Rufous Moulting

The Paradise-flycatcher inhabits thick forests and well-wooded habitats all over India. It is both migratory and residential, and the climate of tropical South India hosts both visiting migrants and locally breeding birds.

This bird is noisy with sharp skreek call. It has short legs and sits upright whilst perched prominently. It feasts on insects using a variety of techniques, including hawking from a perch.

Chick in Nest

Breeding season for this monogamous bird is April-August during which time the female lays 3-4 pink eggs. The nest is a tiny cup of grasses, roots, fibers and leaves bound together with cobweb and plastered on the outside with egg-bags of spiders. The eggs are incubated by both the male and female.

To view videos of this bird, including nest building videos go to this link here.

Spotted Owlet - Athene Brama

The Spotted Owlet (Athene brama) is a small Owl common in the Tiruvannamalai district. Although It prefers open habitats including farmland and areas populated by people it has adapted to living in cities. Nests near human habitations may show higher breeding success due to increased availability of rodents for feeding young.

It’s a small stocky bird with upperparts grey-brown spotted with white and underparts white, streaked with brown. Its face is pale and eyes yellow. Its wings are spotted and banded white, and the tail has narrow white bars.







Although the Spotted Owlet is primarily active during twilight it sometimes can be seen by day. In fact several young Spotted Owlets are regular visitors in my neighbourhood and seem to particularly enjoy roosting on electricity poles outside my cottage.








Its voice is a harsh alternating between a variety of screeches and chuckles. It mainly preys on beetles, moths, earthworms, lizards, mice and small birds. Usually hunts from a perch, pouncing on prey, but occasionally takes insects in flight. Its flight is deeply undulating, consisting of a few rapid flaps followed by a glide with wings pressed to the body.

In the South, this bird breeds from November to March. Nests are in natural tree hollows, or in holes and cavities in human dwellings.







May also nest in cavities in the sides of ravines and earth cliffs when suitable trees are scarce. The nest is sometimes liked with grass and feathers.







It lays up to 5 white, roundish oval eggs with incubation beginning with the first egg thus causing considerable size difference within the brood. Only one or two chicks may fledge and they leave the nest in about 20 days

For an excellent selection of photographs, audios and videos of the Spotted Owlet, go to this link here.

My friend Charlie

I previously posted information about a commonly viewed bird in the Tiruvannamalai District, i.e. the Indian Treepie. To read the posting go to this link here.







I always think of the Treepie as a crow in evening dress. Charlie started visiting our garden some months ago and nowadays even brings his gang of friends to visit and feast.







However, Charlie is a crank and if some of his favourite food (i.e. chapattis, grapes or biscuits) is not waiting for him in his special place in the garden, he comes into my cottage for a fly around to demonstrate his displeasure.

First call of duty when Charlie enters the cottage is ALL FANS OFF and thereafter I can relax and watch him have his fly around. My dogs are so used to him coming into the cottage to visit, that they have stopped reacting. So much so that they don't even blink when emboldened Charlie perches on their food dish for a quick snack.

Greater Coucal

The Greater Coucal is the size of a Jungle Crow, but with a long and broad tail. The bird is a large species of Cuckoo around 48 cm in size. Its head is black and its eyes are ruby red, its upper mantle and underside are black glossed with purple and its back and wings are chestnut brown.





[The poster of this video mentions that several Coucals (and some other birds) are audible on the soundtrack]


The call of this bird is an easily distinguishable deep, resonant coop-coop-coop and its deep calls are associated with spirits and omens. In fact this bird is traditionally associated with many superstitions and beliefs.






The bird is easy to view around the countryside surrounding Tiruvannamalai. They specially like open forest, scrub and bush and groves around human habitation. Several visit my garden regularly and two are in current occupation around a nest constructed in some garden trees.

Coucals enjoy most: caterpillars, insects, snails, lizards, mice and bird’s eggs. But I’ve noticed them also enjoying the nut and fruit snacks strewn under bushes on my garden floor. The Coucal is a clumsy bird which stalks along the ground and hops amongst shrubs and trees.













As well as drying off after rain, this bird enjoys sunbathing in the mornings with its wings spread out. The Greater Coucal is most active in the mornings and late afternoons. The territory of a nesting pair has been found in South India to be around 10 acres on average.

The Coucal’s nesting season is generally around February to September. Its nest is a large untidy mass of twigs and leaves with a lateral entrance.

The below photographs are of a Coucal nest in my garden. The nest definitely has a lateral entrance as its impossible to reach the nest from topside as is evidenced by the third photograph in this nest sequence in which the nest is so well buried in the trees, that its impossible to see the nest from the roof of my house.

Have already experienced a lot of fun with our resident Coucals, as several days previously one of the birds had a slip whilst getting to its nest and was forced to make a hasty and ungainly exit downwards using the branches and leaves as an emergency slide. Since that day I've noticed that the birds seem to approach their own nest much more cautiously.

Nests are usually comprised of three or four white eggs with both sexes sharing domestic duties.

Juveniles are duller black with spots on the crown and with whitish bars on the underside and tail.

A nice catch of a Greater Coucal which I took through a screened window in my cottage whilst it was sitting outside on my compound wall.