BirdingASIA 26 (2016): 79–81 79 NOTEBOOK First record of cave-nesting by Yellowthroated Bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus, Gingee Hills, Eastern Ghats, India Observations On 13 July 2015, Yellow-throated Bulbuls were seen entering a small cave under a stone wall on Sakkilidurg hill, Gingee (12.245°N 79.404°E) at 300 m (Plates 1 & 2). I first observed an adult bird carrying food into the cave, to a nest in a crevice at a height of 2.5 m above the floor (Plate 3). Both adults were subsequently seen to be sharing the feeding of the chicks. During my observations, the pair remained close to the nest-site, one of them sitting near the cave on a Ficus tree (Plate Plate 1. A view of Sakkilidurg hill, Gingee, Eastern Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India, a nesting site of Yellow-throated Bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus, 1 October 2015. The arrow shows the approximate position of the cave, Plate 2. The entrance to the crevice in which the Yellowthroated Bulbuls were nesting, 13 July 2015. A. KALAIMANI Introduction The Vulnerable Yellow-throated Bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus is endemic to southern India (Ali & Ripley 1987, Subramanya et al. 2006, BirdLife International 2016), being locally distributed in parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (Subramanya et al. 2006, Narayanan et al. 2007). It is generally associated with boulderstrewn hillsides or rocky outcrops with dense undergrowth, usually in thorn-scrub forest, mixed dry, or moist deciduous forest, from 300−1,800 m (BirdLife International 2016). It is a plain, crestless, grey-and-yellow bulbul with a bright yellow crown, chin and throat, yellow thighs and undertail-coverts, and brown wings and tail, the latter tipped with pale yellow; the sexes are alike (Ali & Ripley 1987). The breeding biology of the Yellow-throated Bulbul is relatively poorly known, although several nests containing 2–3 eggs have been described previously, either on the ground in thorny vegetation (amongst dry leaves between two over-arching granite boulders), or in a dwarf date palm Phoenix humilis; birds have been seen courting and collecting nesting material in March and feeding nestlings in July (Allen 1908, Karthikeyan 1995, Pittie 1998) and observations of a nesting pair between June and August 1999 were described by Venkataswamappa & Chaitra (1999). In the course of a study of the species’s breeding behaviour in the Gingee Hills, Eastern Ghats, Tamil Nadu, southern India, a pair of Yellow-throated Bulbuls was found nesting in a cave, the first time this behaviour has been observed and described. A. KALAIMANI A. KALAIMANI First record of cave-nesting by Yellow-throated Bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus, Gingee Hills, Eastern Ghats, India A. KALAIMANI 80 Plate 5. The empty nest of Yellow-throated Bulbul in the second crevice, 15 July 2015. A. KALAIMANI Plate 6. Close up of the Yellow-throated Bulbul nest found on 14 July 2016. Plate 3. The Yellow-throated Bulbul nest in a crevice, 25 July 2015. The arrow marks the position of the nest. SALMAN A. KALAIMANI Plate 4. Yellow-throated Bulbul in Ficus sp. tree, Sakkilidurg hill area, July 2015. 4), calling continuously. When they left the nest to collect food, the pair flew off together. I checked the nest again on 11 August but by then it was no longer in use. The nest was cup-shaped and made of twigs, hay and fine fibres. The habitat in the area consists of thorny hillocks with scrub forest and the major vegetation includes Indian banyan Ficus benghalensis and other Ficus sp., Euphorbia sp., jujube Ziziphus mauritiana, jambul Syzygium cumini and Cissus sp. On 15 July, near to the first nest site, a similar empty nest also thought to have been constructed by Yellow-throated Bulbul was found in another crevice (Plate 5). However, this nest fell down several days later after heavy rain. Earlier literature describes the nest of Yellowthroated Bulbul as being close to or even on the ground, in or sheltered by low or overhanging vegetation (Venkataswamappa & Chaitra 1999). My observations show that Yellow-throated Bulbuls use crevices in caves as nest-sites in addition to the BirdingASIA 26 (2016) sites previously described. Nor were they alone in using the cave, as various bats Rhinopoma and Hipposideres sp., Indian Golden Gecko Calodactylodes aureus, other geckos Cnemaspis sp. and Günther’s Toad Duttaphyrnus hololius were observed there. Although apparently vulnerable to damage during periods of rain, it appears that both nestsites, being in crevices/caves, offered the birds some protection, presumably from predators. Bonnet Macaque Macaca radiata, Ruddy Mongoose Herpestes smithii and Indian Palm Squirrel Funambulus palmarum were all seen in this area, whilst potential avian predators seen included Black Kite Milvus migrans, Crested Serpent Eagle Spilornis cheela, Shikra Accipter badius, Oriental Honey Buzzard Pernis ptilorhynchus and Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus. It is interesting to note that when the area was revisited in July 2016, Yellow-throated Bulbuls were again using the crevices for nesting and a close-up of one of the two active nests was obtained (Plate 6). Acknowledgements I thank the Oriental Bird Club for their support (Conservation Grant No. 1024), IDEA WILD (USA) for providing camera equipment for the project, V. Irulandi, S. Anand and the Gingee field staff of Tamil Nadu Forest Department for granting permission and providing help for the study, R. Nagarajan and S.Babu for their help with the manuscript, and K. V. Sudhakar, C. Arivazhagan and Brawin Kumar for their support and encouragement. 81 References Allen, P. R. (1908) Notes on the Yellow-throated Bulbul (Pycnonotus xantholaemus) J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc.18: 905–907. Ali, S. & Ripley, S. D. (1987) Handbook of the birds of India and Pakistan. Compact edition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. BirdLife International (2016) Species factsheet: Pycnonotus xantholaemus. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 16/04/2016. Karthikeyan, S. (1995) Notes on the occurrence of Yellow-throated Bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus (Jerdon) at Sheveroys, Tamil Nadu. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 92: 266–267. Narayanan, S. P., Boopal, A., Nanjan, S., Kurian, J., Dhanya, R., Gomahty, N., Dastidar, D. G., Rajamamannan, M. A., Venkitachalam, R., Mukherjee, D. & Eswaran, R. (2006) New site for the Yellow- throated Bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus from Tamil Nadu. Indian Birds 6: 151–153. Pittie, A. (1998) Birding notes. Pitta 84: 3–4. Subramanya, S., Prasad, J. N. & Karthikeyan, S. (2006) Status, habitat, habits and conservation of Yellow-throated Bulbul Pycnonotus xantholaemus (Jerdon) in South India. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 103(2–3): 215–226. Venkataswamappa, M. & Chaitra, M. R. (1999) Observations of nesting Yellow-throated Bulbuls. Oriental Bird Club Bull. 30: 32. A. KALAIMANI No. 466, Murugan Kovil Street, Thenimalai Thiruvannamalai-606603, Tamil Nadu, India Email: manikalai16@yahoo.com