Rufous Bellied Niltava Eggs In Their Nest In The Himalaya | India

See the delicate eggs in their nest - we took cover in a distant hide to film these so that the birds didn't get scared of our presence...

We discovered this beautiful pair of most colourful Niltavas breeding in the protected zone of the Wilderness Orchard and botanical gardens in Uttarakhand, and decided to discreetly follow their breeding process without disturbing the birds.

This is an adult male rufous-bellied niltava, Niltava sundara, a member of Muscicapidae, the chats and Old World flycatchers. This species is very similar to the small niltava, N. macgrigoriae, with nearly identical colouring and patterning of the upperparts, but the male rufous-bellied niltava is considerably, and has orange underparts (small niltava has grey-blue underparts).

The rufous-bellied niltava lives in the brushy undergrowth in a variety of moist and tropical forest types, including mixed, broadleafed, secondary and disturbed lowland montane forests throughout the Himalayas. The bird ranges from central China through Myanmar (Burma) and into northern Thailand and Indochina.

As typical for its family, this species is mainly insectivorous and it also consumes fruit. This species constructs an open cup nest hidden in dense vegetation. The hen lays 3-4 eggs per clutch, which she incubates alone, and both parents feed and care for the chicks. Young birds are primarily fed insects.

The male gets his brilliant colouring from a combination of pigments and structural colours. The orange underparts come from pigment-based colouring, created by a group of pigments known as carotenoids. The carotenoids are produced by plants, and are acquired by eating plants and storing the pigments until moult, at which time the carotenoids are placed inside the growing feathers.

Blue is a combination of structural colouring and pigment-based colouring. The rich dark blue of the bird's upperparts is the result of tiny air pockets insi