Jungle Babbler

(Turdoides striata)

Size(24-26cm): Small noisy bird found everywhere-in homes, forests and gardens.

Area: All India south of Himalayas.

Habitat: Likes human inhabitation, light forests, open scrub, cultivated lands, gardens and parks.

My two words: Dull earth brown plumage. The upper parts are usually darker and is mottled on throat as well as breast. It has got a rufous tail and darker primary flight feathers.

Jungle Babblers are gregarious birds. They have been given the name ‘Seven Sisters’ because of their habit of forming groups of 7-10 birds. They usually feed on insects, figs and sometimes flower-nectar.

Pairs might breed any time of the year but the the time most of them do is during the Spring Season or the Monsoon Season. Greenish-blue eggs usually 3-4 in number per nest.

When threatened by predators, they sometimes play dead( acting to be dead while actually alive, used as a defensive tool to fool the predator). Their most common predator is Shikra.

Jungle Babbler is often confused with the Yellow-billed Babbler of south India. The latter can be differentiated by dark lores between the eye and the bill and the call of the former is  more musical than the latter. Jungle Babblers are annoying when they come together and create noise(literally-‘Annoying‘).

They are commonly seen knocking window glasses and sometimes a pair takes to beating the side view mirror of vehicles(they really get exciting on seeing a duplicate of them).

They have well-adapted themselves to live near humans.

~Arjun Basandrai