First Flight

One afternoon, inside the Wilpattu national park, we came across this monarch bird’s nest, which has a distinctive cone shape. There were two chicks in the nest, and two adults were hovering around them. We stopped to watch the commotion and realized that they were teaching the chicks to fly out of the nest. While we were watching, one came out of the nest and landed on the ground, with one adult following it. The other monarch bird perched on a branch closer to the nest with some food in its beak, and the other chick flew out to the same branch. It was a wonderful to see how the adults were teaching their babies to fly out of the nest to get food. A worthwhile bird watching experience.

(Wilpattu National Park; June 2016)