Silver-eared Mesia

The silver-eared mesia is a bird of South East Asia, its diet dominated by insects and their larvae as well as fruit and, to a lesser extent, seeds. A study of feral birds in Hong Kong found insect remains in 87% of faecal samples and fruit remains in 97%. It often associates in large groups of up to thirty birds while foraging, and even forms groups in the breeding season, generally feeding close to the ground but going as high as 5 m into the canopy (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is a seasonal breeder, November to August, starting later, in April, in the northern part of its range. The nest takes about four days to build and is placed near ground level or up to 2 m up in a bush, with a typical clutch of two to five white eggs with light but rich madder-brown spots, four being typical in India and two or three more common in Malaysia; both parents incubate. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, a resident forest bird with a Moderate range of about 80,300 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).