Alectoris Chukar

 The Chukar is an introduced game bird from southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia into North America. This game bird has made its habitat in the central parts of the US on the east side of the Rocky Mountains. They are mostly seen in Nevada and Idaho but are expanding into other nearby states.

The chukar is a non-native species that was introduced to North America as a game bird in the late 1800s. It is native to the mountainous areas of the Middle East and Asia from eastern Greece and southeastern Bulgaria through Asia Minor east to Manchuria China. It is a  member of the pheasant family.

ChukarIt stands about 13-15 inches in length and has a light grayish-brown back and wings and a white belly. Its head, chest and rear are gray and it has white cheeks and a white throat surrounded by a black band. It has black stripes on its sides and a black band across its forehead. Its bill, eyelids, feet and legs are pink to dark red. Males and females look alike.

Range

The chukar can be found from British Columbia and Alberta south to California and Colorado. The chukar has also been introduced to Hawaii. It is also found in Europe and Asia.

 Habitat

The chukar lives on rocky, arid hillsides and mountain slopes and canyon walls. It is also found in open and flat desert areas with little vegetation and on barren plateaus. It is an altitudinal migrator and will move from higher elevations to lower elevations during snowy weather.

Diet

The chukar feed on seeds, grasses, bulbs, stems, fruit and leaves. It also eats small amounts of insects like grasshoppers, caterpillars, crickets and ants.

 Life Cycle

Male and female chukars form pairs from February through April. The male will perform a courtship ritual that involves head-tilting and showing his barred flanks. Both the male and female will call out to each other and peck at objects on the ground.

The female lays 8-15 eggs in a scrape lined with grass, leaves and feathers within the shelter of rocks or brush. The male will often leave the female after she has laid her eggs. The chicks hatch after about 24 days and will leave the nest and start feeding on insects shortly after hatching. They will begin to fly when they are about two weeks old.

Behavior

The chukar rarely flies. It is a good runner and can also hop across the rocky terrain in its habitat. Except for during breeding season, chukars live in coveys of up to 40 birds.

The Superb Fairy-wren

 The Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) is an iconic Australian bird. It is a much loved little bird, it is reasonably common in many parts of south-eastern Australia, particularly in urban environments, and it can be quite confiding.

The Superb Fairy-wren took the title of Australian Bird of the Year for 2021, in a poll run by The Guardian Australia. More than 400,000 votes were cast in ten days. The fairy-wren polled 13,998 votes, just ahead of the popular Tawny Frogmouth with 13,332 votes.

The species has become famous for its complex breeding system, involving polyamory and cuckoldry. It is a co-operative breeding species, where all members of a family group defend a territory and raise young. This breeding system has been studied at the Australian National University for over 30 years, and includes other cooperative breeders such as the White-winged Chough and White-browed Scrubwren. Some species may have just the one helper. The fairy-wren usually has one or two, but up to seven has been recorded. The chough can have many helpers and lives in family groups of up to 20 — a group consists of a dominant breeding pair and young from previous years.

Below is a snapshot of the Superb Fairy-wren plate from the Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. The plate clearly depicts the breeding and eclipse plumages of the male, and the basic brown plumage of the female.

  • Females run the show, and are known to visit and mate with neighboring males, before dawn.
  • If a male raises four young, on average only one will be his.
  • Young males are usually the ones to stay with their parents and perform the role of helper.

Bohemian Waxwing

 Bohemian Waxwings don’t defend breeding territories and don’t often return to the same areas to breed, unlike many songbirds. This lack of territoriality is most likely the result of the ephemeral and clumped nature of the fruit they rely on. Perhaps because they don’t defend territories, they also don’t have a true song—songs that other birds use to defend territory. Bohemian Waxwings form monogamous pairs for the duration of the breeding season, but pairs frequently form during winter. Males court females by fluffing up body feathers, raising the crest, and pushing the tail downward. After grabbing a female’s attention, the male passes food to the female and she passes it back to him. They continue to pass the food back and forth up to 14 times before mating. They are very social birds and form large flocks during the winter to help find fruits scattered across the landscape. Flocks often range from 50 to 300 birds, and can sometimes be in the thousands. American Robins and Cedar Waxwings sometimes join Bohemian Waxwing flocks.

Habitat

Bohemian Waxwings breed in open evergreen and mixed forests frequently near lakes, ponds, or streams in northern North America and Eurasia. During the nonbreeding season they roam through open woodlands, urban areas, roadsides, and parks, stopping wherever they find fruit.

Food

The Bohemian Waxwing eats insects and some fruit during the breeding season, but switches to eating almost entirely fruit during the nonbreeding season. When catching insects it flies out and back, often from an exposed perch, to grab prey in midair. It picks fruit from trees and shrubs and swallows it whole. It eats almost any fruit available including strawberry, mulberry, serviceberry, raspberry, mountain ash, cranberry, hawthorn, Russian olive, and apple. During the winter waxwings eat dried fruits. The higher sugar content of dried fruit means that waxwings frequently drink water and even eat snow to help with digestion. As winter turns to spring, birds also take sap dripping from maple and birch trees.

Nesting

Bohemian Waxwings nest along forest edges and openings near lakes, streams, and marshy areas. The nest is frequently on a horizontal branch of an evergreen, aspen, or alder tree.

NEST DESCRIPTION

Male and female Bohemian Waxwings gather evergreen twigs, grasses, mosses, and other plant fibers, but only the female builds the nest. She weaves the material together to from a cup nest that is approximately 6 inches across and 3 inches deep. The nest takes 3–5 days to complete.

REGENT BOWERBIRD

 THE REGENT BOWERBIRD (Sericulus chrysocephalus) is not only incredibly beautiful and intelligent, but the species has given rise to one of the rarest birds in Australia – a hybrid of the regent and satin species, which has only ever been photographed twice.

bowerbird, any of approximately 20 bird species that constitute the family Ptilonorhynchidae of the order Passeriformes. Bowerbirds are birds of Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands that build more or less elaborate structures on the ground. Some are called catbirds, gardeners, and stagemakers. The male builds the bower, and he displays and sings loudly in or above it; females visit him there and lay their eggs in simple nests some distance away. The bowers, beset with all kinds of shiny and coloured objects, are of three kinds:

Endemic to Australia, the regent bowerbird is found throughout the rainforests and leafy coasts of eastern Australia, all the way up in central Queensland, and down into New South Wales.

They display striking sexual dimorphism – the males, as seen above, are covered in silky black plumage, with glossy golden feathers on the ends of their wings, and pouring down over their heads like a thick, molten crown. The females, of course, are a dull, speckledy olive colour.

Bower construction and tool use

During the breeding season, a male will spend approximately three percent of his day constructing and maintaining his bower, built from an array of sticks maneuvered into a short, roofless corridor shape. This is obviously a very small portion of his day, and much less significant than the time other bowerbird species spend on theirs, most likely because the regent bowerbird male likes to begin his courtship routine up in the canopy.

The “mat,” or “platform,” type consists of a thick pad of plant material, ringed or hung about with objects, made by Archbold’s bowerbird (Archboldia papuensis). The stagemaker, or tooth-billed catbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris), of forests of northeastern Australia, arranges leaves silvery-side up (withered ones are carried aside) to form a “circus ring.”

The “maypole” type consists of a tower of twigs erected around one or more saplings in a cleared court. The golden bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) makes a rooflike bridge from tower to tower. Male gardeners, any of the four species of the genus Amblyornis, plant a lawn of tree moss around the maypole and embellish it with flowers, berries, and other objects. The brown, or crestless, gardener (A. inornatus), lacking the orangish crown of the other species, makes the fanciest garden and a hut big enough to resemble a child’s playhouse.

The “avenue” type consists of two close-set parallel walls of sticks, interwoven and sometimes overarching, on a circular mat of twigs. Avenues are made by the satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus); the regent bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus) and its relatives; and the spotted bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) and its relatives. Satin and regent bowerbirds make a paint of vegetable pulp, charcoal, and saliva and apply it to the interior walls; a daub of green leaves may be used—a rare instance of a bird using a tool.

LONG-TAILED SILKY-FLYCATCHER

 The long-tailed silky-flycatcher is a passerine bird which occurs only in the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama, usually from 1,850 m altitude to the timberline. It is a thrush-sized species weighing about 37 g. The silky-flycatchers are related to waxwings, and like that group have soft silky plumage.

Distribution / Range

It occurs only in the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama, usually from 1,850 m altitude to the timberline. Long-tailed Silky-flycatchers often perch prominently on high exposed twigs.

Description

The male Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher is 24 cm long and has a pale grey forehead. It is a thrush-sized species weighing about 37 g. The rest of the crested head, neck, throat and lower belly are yellow. The back, lower breast and upper belly are blue-grey, and the flight feathers and long pointed tail are black. The outer tail feathers are spotted with white.

The female is 21 cm long and generally duller than the male, with a darker grey forehead, olive body plumage and a shorter, duller black tail. Immatures are similar to the adults, but the central tail feathers are shorter and the white spotting on the outer tail is indistinct.

 Diet

This species forages in small flocks when not breeding, flycatching for insects or taking small fruits, especially mistletoe.

Berries, any small insects, fruits, vegetables.

Phainopepla have a specialized mechanism in their gizzard that shucks berry skins off the fruit and packs the skins separately from the rest of the fruit into the intestines for more efficient digestion. So far this is

the only known bird able to do this.

Reproduction

The habitat of this bird is mountain forests, where the breeding pair builds a neat cup of lichen 2-18 m high in a tree, sometimes in loose colonies. It nests in the spring.

The female lays two brown and lilac-blotched grey eggs, and the incubation, done by both the male and female, takes fifteen days.

The young fledge 18-25 days after hatching, and are fed by both parents.

 Calls / Vocalizations

The call of the Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher is a repeated chee-chip.

Phainopeplas have been found to imitate the calls of twelve other species, such as the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo lineatus), and the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus).

Hoopoe

 The hoopoe bird is a common sight throughout most of Europe, Asia, and Africa. When encountered in the wild, the hoopoe bird can be a truly impressive spectacle, despite its smaller size. Its crest of feathers, which resembles a large mohawk, is by far its most eye-catching feature. It serves as an important visual display and communication tool in the wild.

Incredible Hoopoe Facts

  • The hoopoe bird has played an important role in the folklore of many cultures throughout human history. It is mentioned in various religious books, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek plays, and Chinese texts.
  • In the Jewish tradition, the hoopoe bird led King Solomon to meet the Queen of Sheba. It is currently the national bird of Israel.
  • Hoopoes soak up the rays of the sun by spreading out backwards along the ground.
  • Like a skunk, the hoopoe bird can emit truly disgusting chemicals to ward off threats.
  • Hoopoes inhabit pre-existing holes and crevices in vertical surfaces, whether natural or manmade.

Scientific Name

The scientific name for the genus hoopoe is Upupa. The name is derived from the unique vocalization that the bird makes. The taxonomical classification of the hoopoe is the subject of some dispute. There are now generally thought to be three living species in the genus: the African hoopoe (Upupa africana ), the Eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops), and the Madagascan hoopoe (Upupa marginata).

The African and Madagascan hoopoes were once considered subspecies of the Eurasian hoopoe, but due to physical and vocal differences, they were split off from each other and made their own unique species (although some taxonomists may still classify them together). A fourth species, the Saint Helena hoopoe, probably went extinct at some point in the 16th century.

Upupa is the only living genus of the family Upupidae, so there are few other birds quite like it. More distantly, it is related to the wood hoopoes, the hornbills, and the ground hornbills, which are all part of the same order.

Hoopoe Appearance and Behavior

The hoopoe is a small or medium-sized bird that measures between 10 and 12.6 inches long and up to three ounces in weight — or about the size of a book. It has black and white striped wings, a long and thin beak, short legs, and pinkish plumage around the rest of the body.

Perhaps its most distinctive feature is the brightly ornamented crest on the top of its head. The crest is red or orange in color with white patches and black tips. The crest feathers serve an important role in signaling the bird’s mood to other animals. When the bird is calm and relaxed, the feathers rest firmly against the head. But when the bird becomes excited or agitated, then the feathers can be raised to make it appear larger than it is.

Hoopoes have many other fascinating characteristics. For example, they flap their wings in a highly erratic and uneven motion that almost resembles a butterfly more than other birds. They will beat their prey against a surface to kill it and remove any indigestible parts. The animal can also produce chemicals and oils through specialized glands that have a foul smell to discourage predators.

Except for mating and child-rearing, hoopoes are mostly solitary creatures that prefer to hunt and forage on their own. They have only a basic set of calls related to warnings, mating, courtship, and feeding. What they lose in numbers, however, they make up for with several defensive mechanics. One of the most important defenses (apart from the aforementioned chemicals) is the animal’s strong break, which can act as a dangerous weapon against predators or against members of its own species. When fighting for territory or mates, the males (and sometimes even the females) may engage in a brutal aerial duel that could leave one badly injured or maimed.

The seasonal movements of the hoopoes can vary quite a bit depending on their location. The hoopoes of the temperate regions in Europe and Asia will usually migrate to Africa or southern Asia in the winter months after breeding. By contrast, the African hoopoes largely remain in the same territory throughout the year, though they may roam between local areas in search of abundant food sources or in response to seasonal rain. Adults typically begin to molt after the breeding season and continue the process after migrating for the winter.

Hoopoe Habitat

The hoopoe has a massive range across much of the Eurasian and African continents, except for the most extreme climates of Siberia, the Sahara, and other semi-wastelands. The range of the African hoopoe extends across most of the southern half of Africa from the Congo. The Madagascan hoopoe is confined almost exclusively to the island of Madagascar.

The Eurasian hoopoe is by far the most widespread species. It contains seven distinctive subspecies divided by geographical regions. The epops subspecies extends from Spain in the west to the Pacific in the east and down to the borders of India. The saturata subspecies is found in Japan and southern China. Ceylonensis primarily inhabits the Indian subcontinent. Longirostris lives across much of Southeast Asia. The major, senegalensis, and waibeli subspecies all inhabit different parts of central and eastern Africa.

Hoopoes tend to prefer the forests, savannas, and grasslands throughout the temperate and tropical areas of these regions. They require plenty of open space with sparse vegetation and trees, cliffs, or walls in which to reside. Whereas most bird species construct their elaborate nests in branches, the hoopoe is content with tiny crevices instead.

Hoopoe Diet

The diet of the omnivorous hoopoe consists of many different foods, including spiders, seeds, fruits, and even small lizards and frogs. The hoopoe’s most common foods, however, are insects such as beetles, cicadas, crickets, locusts, grasshoppers, ants, termites, and dragonflies.

The bird will forage along the ground and attempt to dig up food from the dirt. If it cannot find food on the ground, then it will pick off flying insects from the air. The strong muscles around the beak allow it to open its mouth when probing for food in the ground. The foraging process involves a lot of work; it will constantly overturn every little rock or leaf in search of small morsels of food.

Hoopoe Predators and Threats

The hoopoe has only a few natural predators in the wild, including cats and large carnivorous birds. Humans have not traditionally been a significant threat to the survival of the hoopoe.

Because the bird mostly eats pests largely considered an annoyance to humans and our cultivated crops, the hoopoe is extended a degree of protection in many countries. And thanks to its very simple environmental needs and diverse diet, it is also good at adapting to different ecosystems and situations. However, hunting and habitat loss can sometimes put some stress on particular subspecies of hoopoe.

Hoopoe Reproduction, Babies, and Lifespan

Hoopoes are monogamous creatures that will mate with only a single other bird for the length of the breeding season. Males will attempt to court the female by bringing her a gift of insects on which to feed. As previously mentioned, they will compete fiercely with each other for mates. Once they’ve secured a partner, the hoopoes will mate throughout their normal breeding season.

Females can lay up to 12 eggs at a time. The clutch size is larger with northern species and smaller with species closer to the equator. Females will typically produce one egg per day for as many days as necessary and then immediately start to incubate them. The incubation period lasts 15 to 18 days, so chicks hatch at different times. Females have the responsibility of incubating the eggs, and males gather most of the food.

After laying eggs, the female will begin to secrete a noxious smelling substance similar to rotten meat and rub the chemical into its own plumage and all over its chicks. This substance is thought to deter predators and potentially destroy parasites and harmful bacteria. This secretion will last until the chicks leave the nest. However, the chicks are not exactly defenseless when left on their own. Soon after hatching, they will quickly develop the ability to squirt feces at a threatening animal. They will also strike out with their bills while emitting a hissing sound to scare away predators.

The chicks are usually born with a fluffy white down covering the entire body. They will gain their full set of feathers a month into their lives. The typical lifespan of a hoopoe is approximately 10 years in the wild.

Great Tit Bird

 Green and yellow with a striking glossy black head with white cheeks and a distinctive two-syllable song. It is a woodland bird which has readily adapted to man-made habitats to become a familiar garden visitor. It can be quite aggressive at a birdtable, fighting off smaller tits. In winter it joins with blue tits and others to form roaming flocks which scour gardens and countryside for food.

The Great Tit (Parus major) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe in any sort of woodland. It is resident, and most Great Tits do not migrate. In the past this species was considered a ring species with several subspecies covering a wide distribution, but these have now been separated.

Great Tits come in many races, but they fall into three groups. Great Tits in temperate Europe and Asia are essentially green above and yellow below. Great Tits in China, Korea, Japan and southeastern Russia are green above and white or yellow-tinged white below, and Great Tits in India and south-east Asia are grey above and whitish below.

The Great Tit is easy to recognize, large in size at 14 cm, with a broad black line (broader in the male) down its otherwise yellow front. The neck and head are black with white cheeks and ear coverts. Upper parts are olive. It has a white wingbar and outer tail feathers. In young birds the black is replaced by brown, and the white by yellow.

It is, like other tits, a vocal bird, and has a large variety of calls, of which the most familiar is a “teacher, teacher”, also likened to a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel. 

Great Tits are cavity nesters, breeding in a hole that is usually inside a tree, although occasionally in a wall, rock face, and they will readily take to nest boxes. The number in the clutch is often very large, but seven or eight white spotted red eggs are normal, with bigger clutches being laid by two or even more hens. The bird is a close sitter, hissing when disturbed.

The Great Tit is a popular garden bird due to its acrobatic performances when feeding on nuts or seed. Its willingness to move into nest boxes has made it a valuable study subject in ornithology, and it is one of the best studied birds in the world.

Cinnamon Bittern

 Cinnamon Bittern (Ixubrychus cinnamomeus) is one of the common breeding visitors in northern Thailand. They can be frequently seen while flying over wetlands and rice fields during wet season, but proved to be quite difficult to find when on the ground. 

The cinnamon bittern or chestnut bittern is a small Old World bittern, breeding in tropical and subtropical Asia from India east to China and Indonesia. It is mainly resident, but some northern birds migrate short distances.

Despite the brightly coloured plumage, the male Cinnamon Bittern is, interestingly, more often seen than the female. The female is usually more secretive and seldom come out to feed in the open unlike the male. During wet season,  the males walking around in open rice fields looking for various types of food including amphibians, small fish and insects. The females, however, are mostly seen in grassy areas and mostly seen when flushed from dense cover.

Female Cinnamon Bittern has duller plumage with pale buffish spots on wing coverts and dark streaks on the neck.

Description

It is a small species at 38 cm (15 in) length, though it is one of the larger Ixobrychus bitterns. Possessing a short neck and longish bill, the male is uniformly cinnamon above and buff below. The female is similar but her back and crown are brown, and the juvenile is like the female but heavily streaked brown below. When surprised on its nest or concerned, it assumes the characteristic attitude of bitterns, termed the on-guard. The neck is stretched perpendicularly, bill pointing skyward, while the bird freezes and becomes very hard to see among the surrounding reeds.

Behavior

The cinnamon bittern breeds in reed beds, nesting on platforms of reeds in shrubs. Four to six eggs are laid. The species can be difficult to see, given their skulking lifestyle and reed bed habitat, but tend to emerge at dusk, when they can be seen creeping almost cat-like in search of frogs. Cinnamon bitterns feed on insects, fish and amphibians.

Rhinoceros Hornbill

 The Rhinoceros Hornbill, Buceros rhinoceros, is the state bird of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. For some Dayak people, the Rhinoceros Hornbill represents their war god, Singalang Burong.

The Rhinoceros Hornbill lives in captivity for up to 35 years.

Distribution

They live in the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, and are only found in only the highest form of rain forest.

Descriptions.

The Rhinoceros Hornbill is one of the largest hornbills. Adults are about 110-127 cm (43-50 in) long and weigh 2-3 kg (4.4-6.6 lbs).

Like most other hornbills, the male has orange or red eyes, and the female has whitish eyes.

This bird has a mainly white beak and casque (the tip of the casque curves upward strikingly), but there are orange places here and there. It has white underparts, especially to the tail.

Rhinoceros Hornbill, Buceros rhinoceros

Rhinoceros Hornbill, Buceros rhinoceros Breeding

The courtship and bonding of these birds are critical, as the female must trust the male to provide her with everything when she is incubating and raising chicks.

These Hornbills lay their eggs inside tree trunks, the females stay inside with the eggs, while the male will bring her and the young food. After the eggs are laid the male collects mud, and the male and female pack that mud, food, and feces to ‘mud-up’ the tree cavity entrance. This creates a very small hole, only large enough for the male to feed the female (and later chicks) and for the female to defecate out the hole.

Once the babies are old enough (fully feathered)to leave the nest the female and male chip away the dry mud so the babies can get out.

Diet / Feeding

The rhinoceros hornbill eats fruit, insects, small reptiles, rodents and smaller birds.

Red-Vented Bulbuls

 Bulbul, any of about 140 species of birds of the family Pycnonotidae (order Passeriformes) of Africa and Asia, including some called greenbuls and brownbuls. Members range in size from 14 to 28 cm (5.5 to 11 inches) long. They are active, noisy, plain-colored birds that sometimes damage orchards.

Red – Vented Bulbul

 Representative of the 47 species of the genus Pycnonotus is the African bulbul (P. barbatus, including P. xanthopygos and P. tricolor), an 18-cm (7-inch) brownish gray bird. Others are the red-whiskered bulbul (P. jocosus, sometimes Otocompsa jocosa), which is indigenous from India to southern China, and the red-vented bulbul (P., sometimes Molpastes, cafer) of Pakistan to Java (natively) and the Fiji islands (by introduction). 

red-whiskered bulbul

The 22 species of Phyllastrephus are common in tropical Africa. Finch-billed bulbuls (Spizixos) occur in southeastern Asia. The white-throated bulbul (Criniger flaveolus) ranges from the Himalayas to Bali. One of the larger species, 25 cm (10 inches) long, is the black bulbul (Hypsipetes, sometimes Microscelis, madagascariensis) of Madagascar, Indian Ocean islands, and southern Asia east to Taiwan; it has gray and black-and-white races.

Red-Vented Bulbuls inhabit a huge range that extends from India east to Vietnam and south to Java; they have also been introduced to Hawaii and many other places.  They inhabit open woodlands, scrub, farms, villages and cities, pairing off while breeding but otherwise going about in small groups.

Among the most readily available of their 120+ relatives, Red-Vented Bulbuls have a subtle beauty.  Their plumage is a pleasing mix of light to chocolate browns, tan, white and black, with a purple-tinged red patch at the vent.  When excited, angry or otherwise stimulated, bulbuls raise the head feathers into a crest, which is most amusing to behold.

Keeping Red-Vented Bulbuls

In my opinion, the Red-Vented Bulbul’s chief selling point is what can only be described as a “friendly personality”.  As long as they are not crowded or stressed, Red-Vented Bulbuls are very curious about people – I was able to induce several to feed from my hand in a very short time.  They really do make the most engaging pets, and in parts of Asia are kept and treated much as are parrots.

Unlike many softbills, Red-Vented Bulbuls do fine in a large indoor cage but, given their size (8 inches) and high level of activity, they really come into their own in an outdoor or indoor aviary.

Captive Diets

These little fellows are quite hardy and fare well on a high-quality insectivorous bird food  into which has been mixed a bit of Softbill Select and Egg Food.  Hard boiled egg and some cooked ground beef should be offered regularly.

However, a highly varied diet, packed with insects and other invertebrates, is essential if you want to keep your birds in peak color and breeding condition.  I

Wild and Canned Invertebrates

Red-Vented Bulbuls relish grasshoppers, katydids, crickets, spiders, sow bugs, beetles, flies, termites, moths, mealworms, waxworms, fly larvae, silkworms – almost any invertebrate, in other words! 

Canned Invertebrates marketed for use with captive reptiles and amphibians are a convenient means of increasing the nutritional content of bulbul diets.

Dried Shrimp, a food favored by old-time bird keepers for insectivorous birds of all types, should also be offered.