Oriental Pied Hornbill courtship

A pair of Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) was seen at Changi Village around 5.45 pm in early October 2006 in a courtship ritual. The pair was perching on the branch of one of the old angsana trees (Pterocarpus indicus) lining the main road. The male had just caught a gecko, which, in its struggle to get free, lost its tail (above). The bird approached his mate and offered the gecko to her. The mate appeared to accept, opening her bill, but apparently he was just teasing her (above and below).The male bird trotted off along the branch, soon followed by the female. He then flew off to a nearby tree trunk with a cavity that developed as a result of faulty pruning of a branch. There he waited for some time with the gecko still in his bill. He then went through the motion of placing the gecko inside the cavity a few times without getting the female to fly over (below). After some time trying to entice her to come over to check on the cavity, as is usual with hornbills, he flew off to a nearby branch to eat the morsel himself. See also the courtship between a Great Hornbill (Buceros bicronis) and a Rhinoceros Hornbill (B. rhinoceros) here.

Input and images by Meng and Melinda Chan.

Courtship feeding of a Red-bearded Bee-eater

Ashley Ng shared an image of a male Red-bearded Bee-Eater (Nyctyornis amictus) with a cicada in its bill trying to attract a potential mate. Bee-eaters do indulge in courtship feeding and this may be a rare image of the ritual. This species does not occur in Singapore but can be seen in Peninsula Malaysia.

As with bee-eaters, it hunts from a high perch keeping close watch on the airspace around. Once an insect is seen, it dashes off to capture it. The bird has been recorded to take carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.), cicadas, beetles, crickets, termites and ants.

As with many insectivorous birds, bee-eaters cast pellets of indigestible insect parts regularly. This is also the case with most carnivore species such as raptors, owls and shrikes.

Input and image by Ashley Ng.

Courtship of Dollarbirds 2: What the eyes cannot see

An earlier posting by Meng and Melinda Chan describes the courtship and mating of the Dollarbirds with images to match. Here, another photographer, Allan Teo, has this fascinating story to tell, with photographic evidence as well. Allen describes how he detected the mating of these birds while a pair was spiraling downwards. Without the aid of his camera, he would have thought that the birde were in play or in a fight. Thus he titles his account, "What the eyes cannot see” to stress the usefulness of the camera in bird behaviour study:

“The human eye can only catch motion to a certain extent. We need the help of cameras to see what is actually happening. To the naked eye, a pair of Dollarbirds seems to be falling off a tree branch and rotating on the way down like leaves. You may think they are fighting but look closer with the camera and you will find out something very different.

“One bird grabs the other by the neck as they rotate. They then turn around and face outwards with their backsides attached and mate.

"When they were near the ground, I am guessing less then 2 metres, they flew apart before they hit the ground.

“The action takes place in split seconds and the camera can capture it. Photography provides another valuable insight into intelligent animal behaviour.”

How true, Allan, how true! I have always believe that images help provide quality bird watching. You can always examine the images at your leisure and detect details that you miss when viewing with the binoculars. We are happy to see that traditional birders are now taking up photography, learning digiscoping and even taking up videoscoping. In fact Ashley Ng, our local digiscoping guru and founder of "pigeon-holes", recently gave a talk on digiscoping to the Nature Society (Singapore), invited by Lim Kim Chuah on behalf of the Bird Group. YC

Thank you Allan for sharing your images (below) and your viewpoint. Top image by YC.

Courtship of Dollarbirds 1: What the eyes can see

Dollarbirds (Eurystomus orientalis) are rollers. The name comes from the fact that these birds exhibit aerial acrobatic flights during courtship. They love to make swoops, rolls and turns, often flying straight up and suddenly tumbling down with a rolling motion. Such flying acrobat is usually repeated several times.

The courting pair spends much time sitting close together on a branch high up in a tall tree. They may indulge in allopreening, chatting and courtship feeding. In courtship feeding, the male offers an insect to the female before she will allow him to mount her. Otherwise she will roughly rebuff his advances. Some ornithologists believe that such courtship feeding will fortify the female bird with extra food just before egg laying. Whatever the reason, such feeding goes on throughout the breeding cycle and even after the nestlings have fledged.

Once mating occurs, egg laying will follow. Dollarbirds nest in tree cavities, often an old woodpecker or barbet holes in dead or living tree.

Meng and Melinda Chan were privy to the courtship behaviour of a pair of Dollarbirds last year at Lim Chu Kang. They managed to capture these excellent images of the final mating stages as shown below.


In the next posting we will give you details of another aspect of courtship and mating of these Dollarbirds by another photographer, Allan Teo.