Yellow-vented Bulbul: raising the chicks

By Dzulhelmi Nasir

The yellow-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) is a small common bird that can be seen in gardens, agriculture and trees within human settlements area. They build their nest from dried leaves, twigs and other parts of trees. Other materials such as plastics, papers and rope are sometimes used to make the nest. The time taken to build the nest can reach up to about a week. The built nest can be seen from trees, fences, flower pot and even above lamp. After the nest is built, the female bulbul lays about 1-4 eggs and incubate it. However, not all eggs are successfully hatched. When the eggs are hatch, the female needs to divide its time between incubating and finding food to feed itself during this period of time.

Two eggs was successfully hatched

Both the chicks were taken care, fed with food by both male and female bulbul until they fledge which takes about 10-14 days. Invertebrates such as grasshoppers, dragonflies, spiders and caterpillars were observed as the food fed to the chicks. Small fruits were also observed fed to the chicks after a couple of days.

More food is needed as the chicks get older

Small birds that was seen very close to the nest was chased away, but loud noise was made to warn for medium to large size birds that was close to the nest. The survival of the chicks depend solely on both the parents to feed the chicks with food. Other survival factors include predation risk, diseases and the abundant of food supply within that period of time.

Sometimes, gecko is fed to the chicks