Baby Sunbirds

Just an update on the baby sunbirds.  They left the nest as predicted ... last Monday actually ...gosh over a week has 'flown' by already !  I haven't seen them for the last couple of days which could be a good sign.  Mum and Dad are still coming in around the house garden feeding on nectar but the babies need little spiders and other small stuff at this stage.  Hopefully the babies are out there somewhere, safely camouflarged, waiting for mum or dad to bring back yet another a tasty treat!

 

 Here are the dear babies on day one ... so much fatter than poor mum and dad !

and here is the house they came from.  It takes the parents (90% from mum) about10 days to build and very particular attention is given to the little verandah roof directly over the opening.  The foundation of the nest is spider web silk. The birds here use the soft papery bark underlay from the common native paper bark tree growing nearby, that's what the white flaky stuff is in the photo, but strangely caterpillar droppings seem to also be an important feature in the construction ? !. The nest is lined with feathers but some of these are sometimes chucked out by mum if the weather gets too warm. It takes about 7 weeks from the beginning of nest building to fledge, but they work really hard especially mum ... dad pops by now and then to inspect and give his criticism of the building job or to check how well fed the babies are.  These little birds like to recycle so they will either use the nest as is again or salvage what they want out of it for an entirely new nest.

  
Our Monsoon hasn't started yet, but the humidity is beginning to build up and that gives a sign the season is changeing for us.  When the rain starts we will no doubt have some good stories about crocs and frogs and mould to share, but until then we are a very dry tropic with nary a croak to be heard!
Bear wise I haven't been idle this week and have been working on a new head design, finishing a sweet little Panda, learning about my new camera (a never ending story), and thinking of BoBo our very special bear ...look here to find out more

Cheers for now Robyn.