Lineated barbets are generally frugivorous. However it has been recorded that the parents begin feeding their chicks on a combination of fruits and insects, and graduating to mainly fruits, which seem true of the IT pair that I observe to feed mainly fruits to its young before it fledged.
However, after more than two weeks the CP pair was still feeding both insects and fruits to its young (and it continued to do so till the young fledged).
And a chance encounter gave me an opportunity to see the pair forage for food for their chick/s.
As I was taking a breather after a futile avian search, a familiar bird suddenly zoomed past me straight for the ground, followed closely by another. It appeared triumphant as it held up a fallen over-ripened 'buah rukam' that looks like it'd been immediately crushed in the barbet's bill. Then it flew up to join its mate that was up in the adjacent 'buah rukam' tree.
And crushed fruits were indeed among the fruits and insects now fed to its young.
The insect preys looked big each time.
And this one even looked suspiciously like a fruit bat! (and there are bats in the taman as I almost had one fly into my face when I walked under a low tree.)
Another big insect.
It's interesting to note that birds are creatures of habits too.
In the case of this pair and their feeding behaviours, it's observed that one would usually fly in, paused on a branch just below its nest before it entered the nest whilst the other one preferred to aim straight for the nest from wherever it was.
The handsome pair of parents ...
... the one that paused
... and the other
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