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The Courtship feeding of Orange-headed Thrush
It was a few moments’ sojourn in last scorching summer under the roof made by dense green leaves of the mango trees and in the ground where sunrays were playing hide and seek with the dry leaves in our village. One was the King and the other his wife, the queen. Their bodies were deep and bright orange coloured, and their conjugal life as well was colourful in the same manner, almost same as ourselves the humans. Are you surprised? Or confused? Please wait and let me elaborate.
The “King” and the “Queen” in my story is actually a pair of birds. Their English name is Orange headed thrush (OHT), and scientific name Zoothera citrina, whom in Bengali we call “Dama”. This Citrina sub-species of the OHT are found across the foot of the north eastern Himalayas. There is another sub-species called caynotus which looks a bit different and carries white patches on either side of their eyes. They are found across the southern India.
They are not very popular as cage birds in our country but in south eastern Asian countries they have a very high demand as cage birds. To cater for this demand these birds are commercially produced and reared in Java and Indonesia. These birds are known as marvelous singers. The famous ornithologist Salim Ali has quoted on their singing capacities in the ninth part of his book “Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan” - “A typical Thrush song, loud, sweet and variable with some very high pitched notes, reminiscent of the Blackbird’s; contains many successive repetition of strophes (as a European Song Thrush, Turdus philomelos) and faithful imitations of other birds’ songs and call. Uttered chiefly in the morning and evening while sitting motionless, wings drooping at the sides and tail held low; usually given from low trees or down in dense cover.” This ability of these birds has made them more lucrative to the prospective customers.
I have never heard them of singing very loudly. The period of their conjugal life that I witnessed was very small and was only for three days. I observed them for two consecutive days then about seven days later. The OHTs are basically shy in nature. They took quite a lot of time to feel free in the presence of a large camera and not-a-good looking cameraman. After that they took my presence as granted.
"The King" and "The Queen"
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The first day observation part -II
The queen remained in a same place and did not budge much. Most of the time it was engaged in cleaning its body with its beak. Its wings hung loosely on either sides of its body while the male bird was busy rummaging in the dry leaves for earthworms and then feeding its partner those earthworms very happily. Each time after being fed, the female bird was repeatedly coming to a particular place on the ground with lots of dry leaves under the sun-rays, spread its wings widely and sat there.
On one occasion I noticed that the male bird brought some nest building stuff in its beak and hopped around the female bird which was sitting there in the same spot.
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Second Day of Observation
I saw the same series of events. The male bird was feeding the female one from time to time. But the female bird was not doing the act of spreading its wings as it was sitting in a place.
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The third day of observation Part - II
All of a sudden the female bird picked up a dry blade of grass in its beak.
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The third day of observation Part - III
The male one was close nearby. He quickly reacted by collecting some hay materials in its beak and coming close to its partner. Then they exchanged the contents of their mouth sitting in a branch of tree.
This is known as “nesting material sharing”.
On each occasion the male fed the female in the last three days the food materials always included the earthworms. On one occasion only there was the fruit of the ‘Madras Thorn’ (Pithecellobium dulce) plant but the male was not very willing to feed that to the female. Though the female did not show any unwillingness to receive it from its partner.
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Observation of 2019 in another place in my village
@Mrudul Ji
Yes, this year I have observed some differences in their behaviour. In 2019 May, I was busy observing breeding behaviour of Asian Paradise Fly-catcher in an another place of village. Where I observed A male Orange headed Thrush collecting food for his female partner and feeding her. They often offer cricket and other insects but grossly earth warm. This year, I think, due to lack of rainfall earth warms are not available in good number. But which I observed that they prefer earth warm for courtship feeding. Here I am posting that image of the male 2019. He was too close to me. Although I have not tried to document their courtship behaviour as I was busy observing Asian Paradise.
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Observation of 2019 in another place in my village
Here is some images of male Orange headed thrush collecting earth warm in 2019 where I was observing Asian paradise flycatcher.
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Observation of 2019 in another place in my village
Here is another image from 2019.
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Nesting material sharing 2022 I
Couple formation completed on first week of May 2022. Here I observed the male brought nesting materials in his beak to nest and the female who was already there in the nest, was begging for nesting materials.
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Nesting materials sharing 2022 II
The male is giving nesting materials to the female.
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Nesting materials sharing 2022 III
The female took nesting materials from the male.
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Nesting materials sharing 2022 IV
The female put the nesting materials on her nest.