Stuart Rae

Cunning nest builders

High in my list of favourite nests are those of the Varied Sittella Daphoenositta chrysoptera. I remember wanting to see one since schooldays when I first saw a photograph of a nest, then when I visited Australia I wasn't disappointed. They are extremely craftily built and difficult to see, but last week I heard these birds busy in a tree above me, and there was another.

Sittellas are cooperative breeders, where there is one breeding pair and up to several helpers. The breeding female incubates the eggs, and broods the chicks; the others help by providing food, defending the contents from predators and of course, as seen here, they aid in the building of the nest.

The nest is constructed with spiders web and strips or flecks of paper-thin bark.

Their nests are typically set in the upright fork of a dead bark-less branch.

The birds deftly layer the material to fit within the fork and mold the bark flakes to flow with the contours of the branch.

All that material has to be shaped just right to fit the incubating bird, so I think this is the breeding female turning about on the nest.

Some of the birds came in with rather large beak-fulls of nest material.

Sittellas always land on branches in an upright pose.

Although they seem to prefer to walk down the branch to the nest.

Yet another shuffle to get it all into shape, then repeat.