Today we return again to the neighbouring forests of Narsapur where I had spotted, on an earlier trip, the Small Minivet (Pericrocotus cinnamomeus) - a bird belonging to the family of cuckooshrikes and minivets, the Campephagidae.

The small minivet species is distributed in Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia. These minivet species are common resident birds of the thorn jungles and shrubs of the Deccan Plateau and they are polytypic species. They are found everywhere in the country, wherever they can find their naturally preferred habitat of forests, groves, gardens and tree-dotted cultivation. The only region where Small Minivets are not seen are the arid parts of Rajasthan.

The Small Minivet is, appropriately, a small bird (15 cms). It hunts chiefly small insects that live in trees, but does not say no to flower nectar (!) when it can’t find trees. It works tirelessly in its search for food, keeping to tree tops and flying actively amidst foliage. Hence, as you can imagine, it is an extremely difficult bird to sight, leave alone photograph. Yet, here it is, perching on what I think is an east indian screw tree (Helicteres isora) tree. Hurrah!!!

An interesting experience this one. I was on my own accompanied only by my friend and driver, Aijaz. We’d arrived well before dawn and were in position on an embankment when we both spotted the bright orange whizzing past at some distance. There is a dried pond here which has always piqued my curiosity because when it does fill with water it is a natural deterrent and slightly isolates a couple of trees of the wild guava and a lantana bush. Very good perches and it is in this general vicinity that I had earlier photographed the beautiful Black Redstart.

But this time it is about the Small Minivet - the beautiful male and the shy and hardworking female. We’d arrived well before the sun came up and were in time to spot the initial foray of the minivets as they left their perch for the night. What was curios was that 10 minutes later they were back at the same tree and literally the same branch. We waited to see if the behaviour would repeat and sure enough it did almost every 10 minutes and then a long gap of about 20 minutes. I realised they were building a nest. I took advantage of what I estimated to be their long trip out to move closer.

I first set myself up along the dried pond bed but to no avail. Both the male and the female didn’t come. Was I standing in their flight path, I wondered?

What if I move a few feet to the left, but there was a substantial lantana bush there. How about the other side of the lantana and sure enough there was a little niche there which allowed me to move in and blend into the profile of the lantana. I stayed put here for three hours and the birds gave me more than enough opportunities to photograph them from very close range. There were a few people from the local birding group who were walking around but for the most part the birds were undisturbed and relaxed. This pair was busy building a nest and as long as they were undisturbed they went about their business quite consistently. The nest is constructed by both sexes as you can see here and over period of 7 days. The nest is a small, deep, neat cup of fine twigs, grass stems, lichens, dead leaves or bark, lined with rootlets and bound with cobwebs, attached to tree branch or fork above ground. They lay a clutch of 2–4 eggs. The incubation is by female provisioned by male;. The incubation period is 11 days and fledging period is 12 days.