It was late May 2015 we were tipped off by a good birding friend. Seeing this beautiful white morph APFc sitting in its tiny little mossy nest was avian bliss. Stumbled upon it off the trail about 800m from the bridge. If it was the female it would be more discreet for me to notice. The nest was about 10-12 ft from the ground in a valley. So we were shooting slightly above the nest off the trail which was perfect.
So nest building may have started in early May. It appears that the location & selection for the nest is decided by the female ideally on a twin or 3 branches stump of a singular 20 mm diameter stem young tree of about 10-15 ft. The spot must be in a clearance away from other trees and undergrowths as well as off any trail or track. This may be to prevent predators from jumping onto their nest. If you find drongo nesting nearby; there is a good chance a APFc nesting can be possibly nearby. In our case there was one about 150 meters away. It is a synergy taken to take advantage of the drongo aggressiveness to keep predators away.
The Asian Paradise Flycatcher is monogamous and it is the female who do the choosing its partner. Those female who matured earlier will have the first choice of choosing the more matured male, the white morph. Those with no choice will have to be contended with the short tail rufous Paradise Flycatcher. This assumption came about from observations from other read.
Whether the male bird handles the nest building task by himself it is for the ornithologist to study. Not sure about this as other reports mentioned that the nest building is done by both the adults. Multiple eggs are commonly laid in a neat cup-shaped nest, usually lined with root twine and decorated with living mosses and liverworts as camouflage.
The first hatchling was sighted on 7 June 2015 and the feeding starts immediately. Most of the initial feeding is tiny insects like flying beetle and spider. The parents will call out and the alpha chick will response and open its mouth naturally.
My fellow birder MowSum is monitoring the progress and 3 chicks have hatched and they are growing healthly. Here are 2 photos credited to him. After 10-14 days from the day of hatching the threesome should have fledged................
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