Wood Peckers & Mynas - Kerala Birds Facts and Photos

Photographing some birds seen around while walking on a rainy day, in the interval i got between rains. Thanking to the 10x optical zoom of the Digital camera, else i would have been unable to get the birds even spotted in the photos, for their tree living, easily disturbed and flying away nature. Also spotted some green  feathered fruit eating birds, but they seemed much busy flying here and there whenever i tried for a snap. They are the pappaya fruit eaters who tastes the papayas right from the trees before anyone can even notice the fruits are ripe there.

Bird watching, Photos and Facts on some Kerala / Indian Birds

Bird watching around my house in Kerala. A heavy downpour just over and i decided to try the camera as bright sunlight spilled onto the wet nature around. What i got in my camera in the birds category apart from nature snaps are some Woodpeckers and Myna or Mina-bird renowned for its singing and talking abilities-the bird photos are posted just below.

Woodpecker on Coconut Tree

So this is the very same bird species that comes in the advertisement of the major shoe brand, woodlands, claiming their shoe leather will even stand a woodpecker's pecking beak. Hmm the bird has got a universal acclamation on its beak's tearing power huh.

You know what these pecker birds doing when knocking on those tree trunks, they not eating the tree but trying to get a hold of those insects, butterfly larvaes, spiders, worms, cocoons, caterpillars etc which may be hiding deep inside the tree trunk cracks and holes. They pulls out the insects with the drilling efficient beaks and the woodpeckers sticky long toungue does the rest of consuming process.

Some other interesting facts on this bird are, the woodpecker's nostrils are guarded with fine hairs which stops the small wooden and other debris from going inside the nose during the pecking process, by this born tree driller. Something similar guards its eyes too during its beak is at work, a fine membrane covering which closes over the eye balls as needed, as an extra protection with the ordinary eye lids.

Woodpecker's brain is known to be evolved from the time being in orientation and size to adapt the sudden impact from its beak during pecking on hard wood.

The Indian Woodpecker Bird

Woodpeckers (maram kothi, in malayalam, the local language of Kerala, which means that one who strikes the trees) are seen since ma childhood over this coconut tree. The bird seems drenched in the heavy rain just retrieved. Seems her red feathered coat got a little dirty in her struggle for living. The bird appears rough with its dirt tinted coat of red and black feathers, having small white dots through the feather borders.The beak and featherless neck adds to its rough looks. The local woodpecker bird family has a par time office in this tree, and occasionally throws visits into this coconut tree cavity.

Woodpecker Bird Facts

You know why a wood-pecker often strikes on the tree trunks and makes sound, multiple causes for that, sometimes they may be ecolocating the grubs under the tree trunks, sometimes they may be signaling the rival bird species that they entered in the peckers living territory. The English name woodpecker is itself got from the bird's nature of hitting beaks on trees and making noise.

Woodpeckers takes shelter during nights and also roosts and breeds in tree cavities most often. When it comes to woodpeckers of the desert, they use the very abundant spiny succulent plant available there for making cavities, yea ofcourse on the big cactus plant stems.(ladder back woodpeckers, gila woodpeckers etc uses cacti stems for making breeding cavities).

These bird drilling machines are considered helpful to trees and plants for they feeds on the insects and pests those who keeps munching our plants. Anyway their are some woodpeckers, feeding on tree sap too.

Woodpeckers ranges in species that lives in groups to thaose that live and feed around alone which becomes much aggressive to other birds.Woodpeckers are usually four toed with necessarily sharp bird claws. The four toes helps them to get better grip on tree trunks. Wood peckers are one of the rarest birds who can walk vertically up through a tree trunk. 

If you watch woodpeckers closer on trees, you can see most of them gains extra stability for standing vertically on  a tree trunk with the combined action of their toes and tails. They usually keeps their tail pressed onto the tree trunk during the notorious drilling process... hmm resembles a JCB huh, which pushes two steel pillars into the ground for extra support during mining works.

Wood peckers keeps knocking the tree trunk after careful examination for presence of insects. Its found out in bird researches that woodpeckers figures out insects from tree trunks, then pulls it out with its beak and swirls the sticky tongue around its prey before being taken into mouth.

Around 200 woodpecker bird species are found around the world, among which the Imperial woodpecker and Ivory billed woodpecker are considered extinct.  Woodpeckers are seen worldwide in savannas, forests, bamboo forests etc etc and even in deserts and rocky mountains. But certain parts of the world like Australia, Madagascar, New zealand  and extreme polar regions doesn't have woodpeckers. The vast variety of woodpeckers are present mostly in rain forests.

The smallest woodpecker is the Bar-breasted piculet, and the largest is the Imperial woodpecker.

One saying about the bird is like, they abandons the tree once they lay eggs and hatch them. Further the tree trunk nest will be used by other birds.

Common Myna, The Talking and Singing Cage Bird, sometimes an Invasive Bird

Just spotted a lonely Maina, She looks perplexed, oh is the bird a little old, seems like she has got some grey hairs already in her black head cap feathers.She has got such a nice colour blending with those grey feathers, yellow legs, beaks and eye area etc. White lines are flashed under the wing feathers while these tiny bird flies. This is usually the small bird termed as common Myna, which are seen abundant allover, regardless of village or urban area.

A superstition prevails here in India that witnessing pairs of these myna birds is a good omen, and an odd number of mainas will be a bad omen. Good or bad omen, i just happened to see this bird siting here alone, and just snapped her before she got away.

Myna Bird Facts

Naturally Mynas are seen only in southern and eastern parts of Asia. Several species are introduced later in other parts of the world and some of the species especially the Common Myna, turned out notorious for being an invasive bird species.

Some of the mynah species are much cute, especially the Bali Mynas. Mainas are much known for their imitating skills, mostly talking abilities. Myna is seen as often a cage bird or pet bird in and around and some of them trained to call people names and talk some words.

Mynas are seen dwelling  often in open areas. Usually nesting and breeding is done in tree holes or cavities. But they don't care from occupying if a window shelf or a cavity in a wall is only available in those urbanized world for breeding. They are omivores and feeds on insects, fruits, cereals garbage etc.

Mynas were introduced to Australia a long ago for the purpose of pest control in Gardens there. Eventually the pest controller of the gardens itself turned out to be the pest. They multiplied enormously and the bird's potential to thrive varieties of temperatures helped it to spread all over the continent. Now Mynas are often termed in Australia as Flying Rats and got voted by the public as the most major Pest problem of Australia. Is any Myna reading this.. Tell your community to Behave Yourself...

Mynas often shows much aggressiveness during breeding time and they kicks out other birds from their nests and builds their own nests in cavities. These tiny gangster birds often kills other bird species baby birds and destroys their eggs. Minas mates for their lifetime and aggressively protects roosts during breeding time. They kicks out the native birds out of their nests and its seen that one of the native parrot species of Australia showed 80 percent reduction in breeding after the introduction of mynas there.

Mynas feeds on tropical fruits like Berries, plums, grapes etc and often posses threat to such fruit crops and cereals cultivations. In Hawaii the bird was introduced for pest control of insects and worms on sugarcane, but as an aftereffect mynas helped in spreading weeds across the grass lands.

So for the time being that's it. See you with some more snaps i got from the nature. Infact i was just checking the imaging capabilities of a Fuji Finepix S5700 S700, a 10 Megapixel, !0x optical zoom digital camera, by taking these bird snaps utilizing the optical zoom. Seems the digital camera is not the latest one , but something sufficient for an amateur photographer who wanna take a glance of the world around. Meet you soon here in the very place- Pixelshots photo blog, where you can get so many snaps and info on Kerala.

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