Before Pied Fantail build their nest, often saw hyperactive male fantail (not easy to tell, guess slightly more black under the sun) chasing the female fantail like crazy especially going through low tree branches, more like fighting out the territory if not knowing they were male and female playing game. When the nest was built, things got changed. Both female and male took turns to check and sit on the nest and also defense the territory for any intruders. Believe even before eggs were laid, they started this behavior (could not look into the nest so not sure eggs were laid at any one time, just a guess. But if eggs were laid, then it takes more than a month still no hatch:dunno
. When one was sitting, the other would normally be gone out of the vicinity. But less than 15 minutes, it automatically came back waiting quietly a few meters away, normally higher up the nest's branches not easy to spot, ready to take over. Didn’t sense any signal being used except may be remote eye contact. The sitting one flew off and the other guy would suddenly appear immediately or a while later. The handing and taking over is seamless. If one didn’t come back for long time, the sitting one might just leave and the other would be back anyway. In this case, since it is not easy to tell which is female or male, if one took up two shift duty in a row I might not know and still think they were changing shift:bsmilie:
During the period, basically other birds who love undergrowth like fantail would be chased away if found nearby, this include Stork-billed Kingfisher (not fast enough to snap their fight) but innocent looking small Ashy Tailor birds is an exception. But Ashy Tailor birds were not seen perching on braches next to the nest. I kept waiting for it but didn’t happen.
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