Monday, April 19, 2010

A LONELY TRICOLOURED PAIR OF MUNIA BUILDING A NEST

Yesterday as I was raking fallen mango and water apple leaves I saw a pair of tricoloured munias transporting blades of dried grasses up our yellow palm tree.

They were building their nest in between the palm fronds. It had been quite a while since they came and build their nest there. Usually they were the noisy yellow-vented bulbul that frequently build their nest there.

The gregarious glossy philippines starlings, they were a bit classy in their preference of nesting sites. They chose our roof as their breeding sites. For that, often times I met their chicks dead, probably after falling from their nest way high up there.

The lush mango tree was busy bearing fruits like nobody's business. Actually there were two varieties on that mango tree. One was the familiar small mango (pauh) and the other was the big apple mango.

I guess my frequent burning of their dead leaves have stimulated them into fruiting. Different stages of fruits were up there and some branches, they just beginning to flower.

A pity is that many of them mangoes fall down before their time, probably disturbed by creatures of the night.

It is time to collect the green mango for making pickled mangoes!

2 comments:

Wan Sharif said...

Dear Datuk,
Water apple is what we called jambu laut? Non!
Merci bien for your educational writes.

azahar said...

Wan Sharif,

Yes, it is. I am still trying to find out common English names of our fruits, birds and herbs.