Copper Smith Barbets-Mating

It was one of my normal birding day out at Rimba Kiara. Checked the usual hot-spots for migrant and resident birds. Looking skywards towards a spray of leaf less tree branches I spotted two tiny birds perched almost at the top of one of the branches. As I was not sure of the ID I took a look through my camera’s telephoto lens. It was a pair of Copper Smith Barbets, residents of this wonderful park located within the city limits of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.

It’s the nesting season for most birds around this time of year and none the least the Copper Smith Barbets are in tune. I was really fortunate to record not once but twice the rare photos of the mating birds. It is my pleasure to share the sequence of photos on my blog for all to enjoy.

The female

The Male appeared with a meal offer in mouth.

Commenced rapid wings movement to ‘show-off’ it’s colorful plummage.

Male gets closer but female still not taking ‘offer’.

Male took to flying but female not responding

Eventually the ‘offer’ was accepted.

And the male made it’s move

The pictures in chronological sequence tells the rest of the story

Hey the male still have the ‘offer’ in it’s mouth!

And off it went with the berry. Ehm??? It’s against all convention!

But yes that’s for Chapter 2.