A birdwatcher's diary - January 23rd, 2007

I was at Manjira WLS, Sangareddy on Sunday. We observed a curious thing there: a Silverbill with a feather in its beak was perched on a tree that had several Weaver bird nests. It was followed by a female(?) Silverbill and both of them surveyed us standing close by. Then the bird with the feather fluttered into the Weaver bird nest-- it was one of those 'two-storey' nests and stayed there for a while. The other bird remained outside and kept uttering low chip sounds. Then the first flew out, minus the feather. Looks like the Silverbills were trying to use the Weaver bird's nest for themselves!

Anyone observed birds reusing nests belonging to other species? Probably tree hollows would be the commonly reused ones...





Old picture. Digiscoped using Addie's Nikon spotting scope. Not a great photo, but it shows a two-storey nest. Second nest on the top from left.