Friends in My Garden- 17

Common Baron Butterfly

Common Baron Butterfly

A resident of India and South East Asia, Common Baron (Euthalia aconthea) is a lovely brown butterfly with dimorphism, lending the female adults to be larger and lightly warm-colored compared to its male counterpart.

They visit flowers or ripened fruits, either still on the plant or fallen down. They frequent my backyard when the guava fruits ripen and enjoy the fruits that are half-eaten by the squirrels. I have often seen two or three butterflies simultaneously feeding on the same fruit.

Though a rapid flyer, Baron can often be seen basking in sunlit spots with its wings opened flat.

On my Guava tree

Feeding on ripe Guava

Greenish probosis is visible

Friends in My Garden- 16

Weaver Ants

A Weaver Ant

My garden is teeming with activities of many types of ants. Today I have the Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) for you.

Weaver ants are arboreal and build their unique nests, where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk. There is a division of labour associated with the size difference between workers; larger workers forage for insects and aggressively defend the colony, whereas minor workers stay within the nests and care for the larvae.

Weaver ants can inflict painful bites and often spray formic acid that causes irritation.

This pair was curious about my presence

Making of a nest…

And the nest!

Friends in My Garden- 15

Spotted Dove

Sitting pretty on my parapet

These  elegant and urbanized birds are my companions on my terrace. I can spend time watching them…their soft cooing, cuddling together, drinking water that I have provided and foraging on the ground for seeds or fallen fruits.

Spotted dove (Spilopelia chinensis) is a small and long-tailed pigeon, which is a common  bird across its native range on the Indian Subcontinent.

They move around in pairs.Their flight is quick with regular beats and an occasional sharp flick of the wings. Nests are built with small twigs and are placed in the niches of the roof.

All these pictures are captured on my terrace.

The soft cooing

I love you….

On a hot day

Friends in My Garden- 14

Building Nest

Making fibres from a dry branch

I was watching this cute little critter, Indian Palm Squirrel, working hard to collect building materials on my backyard fence.

She was tugging at a dried branch, gnawing at it and making fibres out of it. After about five minutes, she could get a mouthful of fibres, made it into a ball using her forelimbs and sat still for a few seconds. May be taking a deep breath after the hard work.

Then scurried to her destination in a nearby tree and disappeared among the branches…the place that she selected to make her nest and settle down!

She got a mouthful of fibres