Jungle Babbler

The Jungle Babbler (Turdoides striata) is called as the “Chila-kaada” in malayalam, loosely translating as meaning – Noisy bird.

These birds are also called as the “seven sisters” as they always occur in groups of 6-10. In Karimannoor, they are very common but are mostly heard rather than seen. They feed on insects, fruit and nectar.

They hang around the undergrowth and in trees and are very restless birds. Being quite shy, they shift locations as soon as an intruder is spotted. They often take up sentry positions and warn other birds when danger is spotted. They are also known to mob predators in groups.

The combination of their shy behaviour and always being in shady dark areas resulted in me getting blurred images of them until now. Yesterday these birds happened to pause on a well lit tree on their way across our backyard.

Although I was only able to photograpgh a single individual, a group of 7-10 birds were present.

Drongo-Cuckoo

Having posted about two different species of Drongos before, when i saw this bird, I thought I was looking at a third species of Drongo.

The bird sat atop a Guava tree, leisurely pecking off a group of caterpillars from an adjoining leaf.

It is that behaviour that seemed to give it away. Unlike the noisy flamboyant display by true Drongos, this bird was subdued and didn’t utter a sound.

Although looking like an Ashy Drongo, this bird is actually a Drongo-cuckoo (Surniculus lugubris) also called as the Asian Fork-tailed Drongo-cuckoo.

Two features help to distinguish the Drongo cuckoo from the Drongo. One being the obvious barred vent (undersides of the tail), and the other being the thinner beak. There is also a small white spot on the back of the head of the Drongo-cuckoo.

Compared below are images of both the birds. On the left is the Drongo cuckoo while on the right is the Ashy Drongo.

 

Like other Cuckoos, this one is also a Brood parasite on small Babblers. For more information see here.

Ants, Spiders and Ant-Spiders

I was out searching for insects to photograph, when I came across what appeared to be an ant, crawling up a curry leaf tree. However, as I took my first shot I realized that something was grossly wrong with the “ant’s” morphology. It seemed to have jaws that were too big and eyes were too closely spaced on its head. I then noticed that it wasn’t really an ant at all, it was a spider!

From appearances, the ant-spider resembled the ant species below the most, so I guess it is an imitation of this ant (identification anyone?). These ants are one of the toughest ants I know of and I cant imagine any other insect being able to break through its hard exoskeleton to prey on it (but of course there will always be predators).

Mimicing ants (myrmecomorphy) is a very common strategy employed by many insects. Spiders commonly do it too and are thought to employ it for two purposes. The most obvious reason being predation -in order to get closer to the ants and feed upon them.

However, spiders have a much better reason to do so – Batesian mimicry.  Ants are mostly unpalatable and are thus avoided by most birds and other insects. Thus if other insects manage to convince predators that they are ants, they may get away without being eaten.

The curry-leaf tree did not host any of the former ant species and as far as I can say the above imitation is for protection and not predation. What the curry leaf tree did have though, was an entirely different looking species of ants who appeared to be busy feeding/tending to the leaves of the tree. It appears to be tending to miniscule aphids on the leaves.

These tiny ants were at least 4 times smaller than the spider and thus its unlikely to be the model for the ants mimicry.

However, there seemed to be a slightly longer type of ant  among the population.

..and the two types seemed to be getting along well and even sharing their aphids. Perhaps it could be a soldier of the same species (?)

While these ants were scurrying about, I managed to find one individual that seemed to sit still, munching upon what appeared to be one of the aphids.

However, as I shifted angles to approach it from the front, I realised that I was fooled again.

This was no ant…this was another ant-spider!

This time though, it was clear that the  spider was trying to mimic the longer ants that I have shown above.

It may not be a perfect imitation but its enough to fool anyone at first glance.

About 80% of the spiders with Batesian mimicry are thought to imitate ants, so I`m sure I`ll be encountering more of these, so keep watching this space if you are interested.

PS.

My guess is that the first ant-spider is Myrmarachne maxillosa and its model is the Polyharchis species

Salticid Spider

I spent at least half an hour , standing on an overturned bucket in order to get these images of this jumping spider, high up in the leaves of a lemon bush. The spider was more than co-operative, but his location, was very inconveniencing.

After half an hour my arms were aching from holding up 2Kg plus of equipment and more shots were out of focus than in. For the lovers of abstract, here’s a completely out of focus shot, worth admiring!

Grey Wagtail Foraging

This Grey Wagtail was back again in our backyard foraging for insects. Here’s a few more shots.

Praying Mantis

Here’ another praying mantis. This fellow somehow turned out to be much harder to photograph, although I couldnt figure out why. It was fully co-operative, willfully posing and staring at the camera until I was done.

Female Scarlet-Minivet

…and here`s more shots of a female scarlet minivet as it stopped by one afternoon.