Scarlet Minivet

Scarlet Minivet or the Song-bird.

Scarlet Minivet image courtsey: manikonline.net

Cousin of the House Sparrows.

Minivets are small passerine (related to the sparrow group) birds of the giant order perching birds (scientific name Pericrocotus flammeus) popularly known as song-birds. This order is represented by the house sparrows (passer domesticus), that brought in the name ‘passerine’ to this group. Scarlet Minivets are common sight in the Himalayan ranges as well as some of the forests of Burma Indonesia, Philippines and Sri Lanka. These birds are at home in the forests as well as woody areas up to the heights of about 6000 feet above sea-level.

Smart Insect hunter.

Minivets are often mentioned as the ‘birds of the paradise’ because of their sweet song, glossy plumage and dazzling collage of colors they sport. Scarlet Minivets are often found in flocks; and they prefer either flying here and there catching insects or rest on the trees the seldom descent to the ground as mostly arboreal in habitat. They are 20 -22 centimeters in length, long wings and have dark and strong beaks. They are able to catch insects while they fly or rest. Minivets shake the braches by fluttering their strong wings and when insects fly out catch them.

The Techni-color effect.

They sport a vide variety of colors, when young males are with pale yellow ventral parts without any tinge of black feathers, adult males are with glossy jet-black top and scarlet ventral parts where as females have an entirely different in color combination they are yellow with grey shoulders and wings and tail have yellow and black feathers. All these jointly appear like a techni-color picture presented in a canvas.

Orange Minivets.

There is one more species related to the scarlet minivet; by name orange-minivet; found in the southern tip of the Indian Peninsula, Western Ghats as well as Sri Lanka. These orange minivets (as a rarer group) are feast for the eye to all bird lovers all over the world. They are distinguished by the orange color the sport in their ventral parts.

Birds of the Paradise.

Except during breeding season they live in flocks. It is the cheerful song that has earned the birds the title the ‘birds of the paradise’, in behavior also they are active and cheerful as swift flyers busy in catching insects or just flying from the top of one tree to another all of the flocks following the first who flies. They make nests by joining roots of grass; tiny twigs etc and bind them together with spider’s web!

The Home-making.

Scarlet Minivet imagecourtsey: karnatakawildernesstourism.org

It is the April – May period they breed, eggs are laid in cup like nests which are well camouflaged. Only close observation can reveal the nest located at the small branches of the trees. The brood is generally small as the clutch does not exceed two or three. The eggs are glossless and lightly dotted with pale green color. Though incubation is mainly managed by the females; males are of help in the rearing of the chicks.

Winged friends.

Birds are our winged friends, without them mankind would not exist, the quantity of insects birds devour is tremendous, without them these insects were enough to wreak havoc to the crops creating starvation deaths. There are approximately 8600 species of birds which live from the most remote portion of the ocean to the heights of the Himalayas. Though man has played the traditional enemy of these poor birds by catching them and killing them for sheer pleasure, birds always had been in service to the humanity from prehistoric times, and they will always be there as long as they survive!

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