The White-spotted Fantail

Rhipidura albogularis

It all began with……

It all began with a melodious call I heard about 27 years ago….

This bird used to sing somewhere outside, at precisely 6.30 a.m., like an alarm clock reminding me to wake my son up for school, when we were in Ambarnath.  We shifted to Delhi after that, and the call got pushed to the back of my mind, while other things kept me busy……

Now cut to Vapi – I had been hearing the same melodious call unconsciously for some time when I suddenly decided to track the sound.  My heart was filled with wonder when I saw the bird perched precariously on the rim of its nest! It was a small, beautiful, neat cup of fine grass and fibers, plastered outside with cobwebs in the crotch of a slender bamboo twig in our neighbor’s garden!

I could clearly see it from my kitchen window. And wonder of wonders, there were three tiny fledglings in that small nest! I was amazed that they didn’t fall out of the nest!

The white-throated fantail-flycatcher is a small, cheery, restless brown bird, with conspicuous white eyebrows and white-spotted breast.

Its most striking feature, as the name suggests, is the perky, cocked, fanned out the tail, with wings drooping on either side.

Its normal call is a harsh chuck-chuk, which it makes while catching flies and gnats; waltzing and pirouetting, and making graceful aerial sallies after the insects.  But during the mating season, it has a beautiful melodious call, which the partners use to call out and reply to each other.

And of course, both the partners take equal turns to look after their young ones, never leaving the nest …….un-attended!!

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Aditi Deshpande June 18, 2014.