A New Guest: Bulbul Couple

직박구리의 방문

Have you ever heard of a bird named bulbul, one of the most popular resident birds in Asia? If not, does the name 직박구리 ring a bell? Probably yes, to those who've created a new folder in Windows without naming it and encountered a lot of names of birds that they'd actually never seen.

Two brown-eared bulbuls, which appear to be a couple, made their first appearance in our garden last month. Now that I think about it, they seem to have been searching for a place to build their nest, which was accidentally discovered two weeks ago by my husband while he was pruning off the branches of a pop tree.

Look how delicately the nest is built with leaves, twigs and pieces of cloth.

"Look, there's a nest. I thought it was just a plastic bag hanging on the branch, but it's a nest!" he says.

Wow. When did all this happen? We totally didn't notice it before. But there was only the nest, not the host. No eggs, either. Did the bulbul give up this place? Or will it hopefully come back to lay eggs and hatch them?

Several days passed. We saw one of them sitting on the nest, very peacefully as if the nest had been its home for a long time. Must be the Mrs., right?

Another several days passed. Husband shouted, "Look! She laid eggs!" I rushed to the tree with my smartphone and hurried taking photos with my arms and my heels raised. (The nest is quite high for my height.) There were four of them!

It being a first to us to have a bird family in the house, we were quite moved and impressed at the sight. It felt like something lucky is going to happen in the near future. At the same time, we felt a sense of responsibility to protect their territory and leave them alone to have some peace and quiet. We decided to share our responsibility with our dog Paul.

"Paul, don't let any cats or rats come into the garden. IT'S YOUR DUTY."

"Yes, ma'am!"