The bulbul is late

Most birds in and around places such as Dubai and other mega cities breed during spring to early summer.

However, when there is a scarcity of nesting places and lack of sufficient and right types of food, birds tend to breed late in the season.

Several species of birds often lay repeat clutches of eggs if their eggs are destroyed or chicks are lost within a few days of hatching.

Most ground-nesting birds such as the plover, stint and sandgrouse lay a second clutch immediately after the loss of the first one. A few of them can even lay up to four clutches in a season if the first three are lost and the period has not reached the middle of the summer in July-August.

This year, most city birds bred from March to June.

But towards the end of June, our tame cheetah was walking on the tiled verandah of our zoo villa when two bulbuls started mobbing it. I went out to look for the reason for the commotion, but I was unable to see anything significant.

Two days later, I found a red-vented bulbul collecting food from the verandah.

I followed it and found it attending to a nest with three chicks in a well-knit cup nest at the junction of the cornice of the verandah and a liana that took support of the roof. So, while I found the reason behind the mobbing of the cheetah, I was still unaware why this pair of bulbuls is so late in breeding.