Purple-rumped Sunbird

This Purple-rumped Sunbird male comes regularly to sit outside my room's window. After doing so, it would deliver a low, rhythmic call for a while. (That's when I go to grab my camera.) Soon, it would start a fight with its own reflection. It does this by pecking at the window while hovering. This would go on and on throughout the day at regular intervals, with a clear combat peak at midday. Sunbirds, like their American cousins hummingbirds, are quite territorial and males have very little tolerance towards rivals in their patch. I feel pity for this bird, as it spends a considerable time of the day in this wasteful behaviour. I think I may have to cover the window from outside as a last resort!

The Monkey Puzzle, and I Am Like.

The Monkey Puzzle is, like, now in my garden's expanding butterfly list.
And I am, like, totally, happy.
First time I saw this rare beauty was like an year ago, close to Kebithigollawa.
It is named Monkey Puzzle because its "prickly" caterpillar looks like a leaf of the South American conifer Monkey-puzzle.

Today, I am heading to Kandy for the big rugby match between Kingswood and St. Peter's. At this moment, I am, like, in need of a pump up song ahead of this clash. So here it is.



The inspiration to use the word "like," except, where it was genuinely needed as a word, came from this post of London, Lanka and Drums.

The Weaver Ant-Mimicking Jumping Spider Up Close and Personal

Meet the half ant, half jumping spider, and totally mean, Weaver Ant-Mimicking Jumping Spider Myrmarachne plataleoides that I photographed in my home garden yesterday.

 
As soon as I stumbled it, I could see through its cunning disguise by noting that it had four pairs of legs like in a spider, as opposed to three pairs of legs like a plain vanilla ant. The elongate body size meant it was a male of this jumping spider.

Contributing to its elongate design was its long protruding spatulate “jaws”—the ends of which were fitted with a pair of needle-sharp fangs that could deliver a fatal stabbing to its victims.

The males, having gone for this extravagant secondary sexual adornment of looking front-heavy to impress the gals, and to intimidate rivals, have dispensed with venom in the fangs altogether.

So with no venom, they use their heavy machinery in front to overpower their prey first, before stabbing them repeatedly with their needle sharp fangs to suck their juices. Often while the victim is still alive.
 
The females of this species, on the other hand, having settled for a simpler body design—looking strikingly similar to a typical Weaver Ant Oecophylla smaragdina ("Dimiya")—have retained potent venom in their fangs. And they inject it to incapacitate their victims first, before drinking the liquefied juices thereafter, the regular way.
 
Those gleaming cute eyes that you see at the proximal sides of the male’s oversized “jaws” are fakes to make it appear like an ant.

It’s real jumper eyes—four pairs of them—are situated further back, where its actual head is placed.

The appearance of the male looks remarkably like a larger Weaver Ant carrying a smaller cousin. Which in real Weaver Ant world is a done thing, with major workers transporting minor workers in their complex social structure to fulfill various daily duties. So this physical appearance of the males also copies a vocational behaviour of the Weaver Ants in an ever so clever way.

This jumper was found in an endemic "Wal-idda" tree, which is peculiarly named in botany as Walidda antidysenterica. This tree had a fair number of Weaver Ants that this jumping spider was trying to copy.

Underneath the leaves, this tree also had a fair number of scaled insects, which feed on plant juices, sucking them directly from the plant's vascular system. After doing that, they pass out a honeydew—a sugary excretion, which the many species of ants, including Weaver Ants, find irresistible.

So this explains the presence of Weaver Ants and the Weaver-Ant-mimicking jumping spider on the same tree. As many other species of ants, Weaver Ants mainly prey on small insects, and turn to honeydew offerings of leaf-dwelling insects to supplement their diet with more carbohydrates. These sugar addicts drawn to trees infested with scaled insects in return give these defenseless insects with much needed protection from their natural predators such as lady bugs and hover flies. 

The "Wal-idda" tree in question had no Weaver Ant nests. As a result, the ants were less temperamental and gave me no trouble. Of course there were warnings given by the odd individual with its "cutting edge" mandibles agape to intimidate me.

Photographing jumpers is challenging business because they are too jerky and jumpy, resulting in pictures with the subject badly composed, blurred, or missing altogether! The other thing is they jump on to the lens and the flash heads when you get too close.

Compared with all of them, I found Myrmarachne plataleoides incredibly easy to work with because it was very calm in its disposition. It was slow and confident, just like an undisturbed Weaver Ant.

Masala

Back to regular programming, and this time, it's a masala post—covering some current affairs in the world of natural history.  

A sticky situation has arisen in ACBWildlife's Blog about some sticky matters that I discussed sometime ago. I just don't want to confound matters any further.

For the first time in recorded history, a Mime (butterfly) is reported here from my home garden. It was found sunning after a heavy thunder shower. Its host plants are of the family Lauraceae; I have as many as five species of them thriving in my garden, including a sizable Cinnamon. So I guess its arrival is not entirely surprising.


In what can only be described as a serendipitous discovery, a Sri Lanka Junglefowl—the national bird of Sri Lanka—was found in my home garden on 12th May. It was not only a garden tick, but also a local area tick! It was found by me accidentally when my mother called me to show an Emerald Dove—a rare visitor to my garden—that she had spotted. Materialising from a thicket moments later, this wild chicken vied for my attention. It didn't have a fully developed comb, which meant it was an adolescent. I had no more sighting of it.

While birding at Elkaduwa with Mike Pope, several Plum-headed Parakeets presented pleasing views. To photograph them, I used manual focussing because of swaying grasses causing auto focussing problems. And I also used the full stealth mode, which is not a feature in my camera. 

Here's the lady first.

And the handsome Mr. Plum-headed Parakeet.

This was how the sky over the Udawalawe National Park looked in November last year by the time we finished a game drive. Soon, it turned a wee bit rainy.

On a related note, a weather station (granted by the Japanese government) inside Sinharaja rain forest had been damaged by some rogue elephants during a nighttime raid. According to a reliable source, there are four wild elephants roaming inside Sinharaja. And occasionally, terrifying people living at the bordering villages. According to the same source, this group comprise of three females and one absolutely massive male.

The latter is known to have some anger issues. 

The Backpacker

"... When the nesting time arrives, a hollow tree or branch is chosen—preferably one with a long, narrow, nearly vertical cavity, and a narrow entrance at the top. Then the female builds her nest, which consists of strips nibbled from the edges of green leaves. Having cut a strip, she inserts one end of it under her scarlet rump-feathers, apparently digging it well into the skin; this does not however, prevent a large proportion of the strips from falling out. When a rumpful of strips is collected, she flies off to her nest-hole and deposits them, accumulating a large mass, on top of which the eggs, two or three in number, are laid."

—G.M. Henry about Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot in A Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka, first published in 1955.

Friday, 10 December, 2011. A respite at last after days of deluge. I came out of my house to enjoy the first rays of sunlight after days of gloom. Well, actually, to put my towel out to dry. Soon, a familiar call drew my attention to the Cinnamon tree in front. It was a Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot—an endemic bird that is more than an occasional visitor to my yard. In all honesty, I wouldn't have noticed it had it not betrayed its presence, for it was merged into the foliage like a traffic policeman in a dark roadside corner.

I ran back to my house get my camera to photograph it, after noticing what it was doing—tearing leaf strips, and tucking them inside its lower back, which is also known as the rump. Knowing that I do not have a lot of time to adjust the settings, I fired some record shots, and the above was the best out of the lot. This was the first time observed this "backpacking" behaviour described so well by the late G.M. Henry, whose book mentioned above was my first guide to birds.

Coucal Chronicle—1

A pair of "Southern" Coucals nesting in my garden has been having it tough.

First, the nest, built atop a coconut tree, was dropped to the ground by a coconut picker; he'd not realised that it was a nest. There were some extenuating citrcumstances for this. The nest was held together by strips of coconut leaves in the outer side. It is normal for coconut pickers to clear area around the coconuts, of dead leaves and things first, before finding the right ones to pick. With its coconut leafy disguise, the nest had been hard to detect for our fellow. (I didn't know that there was such a nest until this accident happened.)



On the grounded nest, were three little devils like this.



One was already dead, probably as a result of the impact of the fall.
I got the coconut picker to put the nest back at its original spot with the two remaining chicks. However, this operation did not work out well as planned; the heavy rains later during the day was one of the reasons.

And that was the end of that. 

A few days after this, I found the coucals taking nesting material to a thicket near one of the ponds. Leaf by leaf, they finished the nest with a lot of hard work. I was happy to see them moving on after the tragedy. Sadly, this happiness was short lived, as a Spectacled Cobra predated their eggs.

Startled by the mobbing parent birds, the cobra had dropped itself down to make an escape, only to find a water hazzard.

It was quite graceful on water, yet the pond's wall was too steep for it to make an escape. So I had to fish it out.

And then, it was time for some mug shots!

The full view.

See how it has got a bulge on the unraised part? That would be the coucal eggs in its belly.

By the way, here's why it earns the "spectacled" part of its name.

And that was the end of that nesting episode.  

Undaunted, the coucals used this nest again to raise another brood. Sadly, this too was short-lived as the nestlings were predated by Jungle Crows—which too appeared to be having hungry chicks from the looks of things.

Now the coucals are putting together a new nest—this time in a coffee thicket—where a pair of Indian Scops Owls roosted sometime ago.

I hope the nesting woes of the coucals will be over this time.

Sri Lanka Painted Frog

Meet the Sri Lanka Painted Frog aka. Sri Lanka Bull Frog Kaloula taprobanica (Parker, 1934), an amphibian endemic to Sri Lanka and South India. This frog is peculiar in that during drier times, it leads a subterranean life—at times being found 10–12 feet under! It comes out during wet weather for breeding, and I found the above individual on my lawn on 14 July, 2010. This day turned out to be rainy towards the evening, resulted by a monsoonal high.

On 17 July, another rainy day, I found another Sri Lanka Painted Frog—this time, would you believe, inside my house! Compared to the previous one, it was less-colourful, fatter, and full of attitude; it was probably a female (based on at least two of those attributes).

The species name: taprobanica refers to taprobane—how Sri Lanka was known to Greeks and Romans since pre-Christian times. Taprobane had derived from the local name that was in use in the past: Thambapanni (aka. Thambrapanni), which means "copper-coloured palms". The legend has it that the palms of the hands of the ancient settlers, who arrived in Lanka from northern India in the 6th century B.C., became copper coloured when they sat on the shore following landfall. (No doubt their backsides too would have turned the same colour, but historians make no such referrence.) Thereon, the newfound land of those ancient settlers came to be known as Thambapanni. As mentioned above, it later became known as Taprobane for people in the West, who came here in search of gems, spices, and elephants—the latter were famously used for wars of Alexander the Great. (Onesicritus, a historical writer who accompanied the latter, claimed that elephants from Taprobane were larger and more pugnacious than those of India.)

Guiding some visitors from USA, I first visited the general area of the aforementioned legendary site of landfall in 2004. One such site: Kudremalai, situated bordering the Indian ocean inside the massive Wilpattu National Park, to my surprise, had rusty coloured soil all over, evidently following volcanic geological events in the past. Here's how the soil looked—with a Fan-throated Lizard Sitana ponticeriana as eye candy.

Macro Monday

Meet the fetching adult female Elusive Adjutant Aethriamanta brevipennis brevipennis (Rambur, 1842), another common dragonfly in my yard. I photographed it yesterday near my dragonfly-pond. This dragonfly species is not so elusive as its name suggests. The stick that it is resting was put up by me to lure it in. And would you believe, it accepted my invitation straightaway. It sat on the perch provided, and posed nicely for me, with the new-growth shrubbery below providing just the right backdrop.

I photographed this using my newest toy—Canon EOS 1D Mark IV—fitted with the Canon 100mm f 2.8 Macro USM lens. I did not use any flash. Nor did I use a tripod.

The Macro Monday HQ is at Lisa's Chaos.

Green Skimmer

Here you have a male, Green Skimmer Orthetrum sabina sabina (Drury, 1770).

This is probably the commonest dragonfly in Sri Lanka. I photographed it near my dragonfly-pond, where it is a regular. It was found at midday, and I didn't use any macro flash.

These were fired through my Canon 100mm f 2.8 Macro USM lens.

And it was coupled with my newest toy. Any guesses?

Macro Monday

Plexippus petersi ready to pounce. This is a common jumping spider at my house. It is widely distributed in Asia.

MM HQ is at Lisa's Chaos

Sociable Glider

The Sociable Glider Tramea limbata is one of the dragonfly species that colonised my garden, after I built my dragonfly pond. It has now become a regular breeder. You may remember, I shared a sequence of its emergence from larval stage.

The images shared here, were taken using my Canon 100-400mm lens, which I must admit is not my most favourite lens for dragonfly photography. Why? Because I just don't like too much of distance between me and the subject, when shooting smaller forms of life such as dragonflies.


Off topic, here's my little neighbour, Malisa Phillips, who will be celebrating her 1st B'day next month.


And the November rain continues...

In Flagrante Delicto

These Stilt-legged Flies, were photographed in flagrante delicto in my garden at Bomiriya, 90210. They belong to the family: Micropezidae. And they truly engage in marathon mating efforts, and are easier to photograph when they are blinded by love.

More hot news, this time birding: last Tuesday was an eventful day. It started very early with a vocal Common Hawk Cuckoo waking me up at 1.30 in the morning! Migrants of this bird species boost the resident populations during this time of the year. I think what I heard was a migrant on transit to more woodier interiors. It was a first record for my garden, so I had no complains, despite the nuisance caused.

At a more civilised hour on the same day, I found two hoped for migrants in my yard. The first was an Indian Pitta, which comes all the way from Himalayas. It was seen hopping at a corner of my garden (with dense undergrowth), especially designated for it. I am looking forward to photograph it later on—after giving it some time to settle down. The Indian Pitta is truly gorgeous bird, which explains why it's been featured in the front cover of Salim Ali's magnum opus, The Book of Indian Birds.

The second migrant seen was this Brown-breasted Flycatcher.


When I started birding, it used to be known as Layard's Flycatcher, named after Edgar Leopold Layard (1824 – 1900)—a British civil servant, who succeeded in adding an astonishing 136 species of birds to Sri Lanka's list of birds. This achievement is phenomenal considering that when he started collecting, our avain inventory stood at 182. The scientific name of this bird is Muscicappa muttui of which, the specific epithet: muttui is to honour Muttu (more correctly, Muththu)—the Tamil servant of Layard, who collected this bird from, Point Pedro, Jaffna—the northernmost tip in Sri Lanka. Layard was full of praise for Muttu, and wrote that he has named this bird after him: "... to whose patient perseverance and hunting skill, I owe best of my birds."

The collection of the first Brown-breasted Flycatcher was made by Muttu in June, which suggests that the individual collected was a loiterer—a migrant that has over stayed.

And the penalty it had to pay for that immigration delinquency was death!

Russell's Viper

Last Monday, I got a call from a man next door. It was to invite me to inspect a snake he had found. As a matter of fact, he is not a big fan of snakes. Often he kills them first before calling me. And it was no different this time. His finds are beaten up to a bloody pulp like in those gangster movies. However, on this instance, it wasn’t too bad and the specimen was quite intact, by and large.

It turned out to be a deadly venomous Russell’s Viper.
Which is responsible for a very high number of human fatalities in our part of the world.

Although it does not have a pit (situated between the eye and the nostril or loreal region) possessed by ‘pit vipers,’—which is an external opening to a heat detecting sensory organ capable of detecting warm-blooded prey even in complete darkness—this snake species is able to react to thermal cues.


This specimen was about 20 inches long. Getting less than a foot from it, I did some macro photography, and the one shown at the very top is one of them. Of course I confirmed for myself that that it was fully dead.

Critters like this is why I am partial to welly Boots when exploring wilderness areas by foot. And that seriously includes my home garden and the immediate vicinity.

Wordless Wednesday - Yellow Waxtail

Dragons in My Garden Part 3

Troy Mullens from TX., USA posted an ID challenge in his high-octane nature blog, ICU Nature with the following image.

The correct answer was commented by only one person, who happened to be yours truly!
The dragonfly in question, Red Saddlebag Tramea onusta does not occur in Sri Lanka. However, we do have two related Tramea species here.

The name “saddlebag” is given for dragonflies belonging to the genus, Tramea considering that they have a dark band at the base of their hindwing, reminiscent of saddlebags on a horse’s saddle. The Sri Lankan representatives have not been given this peculiar name by the authors of our popular dragonfly guide. Instead they are referred as “Gliders”—which is another named used for species belong to the genus Tramea due to their ‘gliding’ flight habits. (Note: Not all Gliders are Tramea species.)

In late April, I was able to observe the emergence of the Sociable Glider Tramea limbata in my dragonfly pond. First, this is how its adult male looks.


Most dragonflies emerge under the cover of darkness in order to escape predation—especially from birds. In my pond, the nymphs come out of water to begin their transformation (into winged dragonflies) typically at around 8.00 p.m. And it can take several hours until the final winged insect appears.

The nymph of Sociable Glider shown below was seen climbing the vertical wall of my pond in its deepest section (4 feet) just pass 9.00 p.m., on 29 April. After coming out of the water, the nymph found it difficult to negotiate the last few inches of the vertical wall. And in trying to push itself, it slipped and fell back into the water. I then collected it and placed it on the outer wall of the pond, which serves as the cradle for most of my dragonflies.

The the most crucial episode of this emergence drama unfolded pass midnight in what was a pretty sleepless night for me with a couple of Dawn Dropwings also emerging. Here are some of the shots of this dragon birth.

This was fired at 0004 hours on 30th April.


At 0009 hours.


At 0022 hours. It has now done an upside down hanging crunch to grab its empty outerskin.

A side on view at 0032 hours.


Call me a dragonfly fanatic, but this newly emerged dragonfly (teneral) was taken at 2.41 a.m. I had some rest in between.
And finally this at 2.47 a.m. before calling it a day!


You can make out the 'saddlebag' in this.

Related posts:
Dragons in my garden Part 1
Dragons in my garden Part 2
The Pond
Dawn of a Dropwing
Scrabble and dragonfly tips