SKY SCANNER

The Silver Eared Mesia defines the term ‘flying colours’ with their striking plumage.

The small and dainty Silver Eared Mesia is a beautiful bird with a very striking mix of colours on its plumage. The plumage has red, yellow, orange, grey, silver, red, and black. The mesia is found in South East Asia. These pictures were shot in Vietnam. This bird has a silver patch behind its eyes which gives it the name “silver eared”. They belong to the family of Leiothrix.

The male Silver Eared Mesia has a red rump while the female sports an orange rump. That’s the most prominent way to identify the sexes.

Luckily for me, I spotted a big flock of the Silver Eared Mesias which allowed me to take a number of pictures. These birds are quite active and shy. The Silver Eared Mesia is gregarious by nature, around 30 birds in a flock. Even during the breeding they are to be found in big groups. Sometimes they even join groups of other babblers.

It has a sweet voice to go along with its pretty looks which makes this species popular with caged bird lovers.

Silver Eared Mesias feed mostly on insects and larvae, but have been known to feed on fruit and sometimes even on seeds. They are found in bushes, undergrowth, lower and middle levels in more open broadleaf evergreen, and pine and mixed growth forests.

The breeding season is spread over pretty much the entire year, November to August being the whole span. Both the sexes are involved in nest building which takes up to five days. Nests are made 2 metres above the ground. The nests look similar to the nests built by other birds in the family Leiothrix, making them hard to identify one from the other. Nests are made from a deep cup of bamboo and other dead leaves lined with rootlets and fern fibres.

The eggs of the Silver Eared Mesia are white with light but rich madder-brown spots. Between two and five eggs are laid in a typical clutch, with four being the typical number in India but two or three more common in Malaysia. Both parents incubate the eggs.

The eggs are incubated for two weeks after the laying of the first egg. Both parents feed the chicks, which fledge after 12 days, and parental care lasts for a further 22 days after fledging.

The beautiful Silver Eared Mesia is luckily not on the list of threatened birds in Asia and we hope to have this small babbler around for a long time to come.