Record barbet nestings, I/V

 It's truly a record for the taman to have two pairs of Lineated Barbets nesting at the same time, and for the taman to have successfully hosted multiple broods of lineated barbets throughout the years

Both nests were at record low heights, one right in the car park and the other just above a walking path inside the taman.

However it's unfortunate that it's not possible to tell if these two pairs are related in any way, that is, could one be the off-springs of the other going by the appearance of the pairs as one pair looked older than the other. And the lineated barbets in the taman have actively produced since the first breeding record here in 2018.  So, it is possible that one, if not both broods of chicks could be the umpteenth for these pairs.

Other questions that come to mind include:

- I first sighted a lineated barbet in the taman in August 2017, and my first record of  these birds (which I shall call the pioneer pair) breeding in the taman was in April 2018 (http://rimbakiara.blogspot.com/2018/04/happy-barbet-family.html ) so could this pioneer pair be one of the present pairs?  

- how early do lineated barbets start to breed, so could the younger pair be one of the off-springs of the pioneer pair?

- how long are lineated barbets productive, ie, so could the still productive older pair be the pioneer pair? 

The pair inside the taman that I shall name IT (for inside taman) Pair looked a younger pair.

And I was lucky to capture this pair as they flew in one after the other with fig feeds for their young, enabling a comparison of the male and female.

The pair in the car park, CP Pair, seemed older going by the image of one bearing more seasoned plumage.

When the IT Pair's with chick/s looked old enough to fledge, the CP Pair was still seen to feed inside the nest hole.

At this point it looked like there's only one chick for the IT Pair.

A parent and its juvenile.

 Encouraging its young to emerge and receive feed at the cavity entrance, and thus urging the young to fledge, is a behaviour observed of how avian parents normally try to lure their young out.

In comparison, this CP parent was still offering feeds to its young inside the cavity nest.

The young of the IT Pair finally fledged one week later following my first sighting of it.  As there's been no witness to the fledging, one could only deduce that there's indeed only one chick in view that feeding period was shorter and the one chick simply fledged one morning,  compared to an earlier nesting last year that produced three chicks that took more than a day for all the chicks to fledge one after the other.

And the CP Pair now hogged everyone's attention being the only nesting pair now.

At this stage, it did look like there could be more than one chick here, going by the nature of food prey (to be explored in a separate post) and the frequency and massive amount of fecal waste removed each time.

P/S  With this I/V posting, the CP brood of lineated barbets have also fledged.