Thursday 3 October 2013

Can't keep your berries and cant eat it too?

A tiny little bird chirping happily as if echoing happiness of surrounding that is all eager to welcome its winter visitors with pleasant temperature, cool breeze, passing clouds, abundance of greenery lands on a tree that hosts fully ripe, bright red, yummy little berries. Sounds a perfect world?








P.S. After posting this initially, I was looking at my bird-guide and it said Pale billed flowerpecker feeds chiefly on mistletoe berries. and as I google for mistletoe berries, understand above pictures more fully. its not only bird in action there, its also the mistletoe. Wikipedia says its a parasitic plant and that 
"Mistletoe seed germinates on the branch of a host tree or shrub and in its early stages of development is independent of its host. Later it forms a haustorium that penetrates the host tissue and takes water and nutrients from the host plant....
Depending on the species of mistletoe and the species of bird, the seeds are regurgitated from the crop, excreted in their droppings, or stick to the bill, from which the bird wipes it onto a suitable branch. The seeds are coated with a sticky material called viscin. The viscin survives such treatment and any bare seed that touches a stem sticks tenaciously. The viscin soon hardens and attaches the seed firmly to its future host, where it germinates and its haustorium penetrates the sound bark". Indeed if you look at above pictures, one fruit has already managed to stick out there. and the one that is hanging in the last upload also managed to stick to the same host tree as I watched.

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