About a week ago (7/11), I dragged myself out of bed and went to investigate a Metallic Starling (Aplonis metallica) nesting colony near the Raintrees Shopping Centre in Cairns. To grasp the concept of colonial breeding you need only step within 200m of a nesting colony of this species. They are noisy, boisterous and always busy. From my time following these red-eyed starlings around Cairns I can say with confidence, that except in the case of a juvenile, it is rare to catch one of these birds standing still. Following is the video I caught of them. If you look closely on the second cut, you can actually see two birds weaving a nest on the end of the limb. It appears that the initial weaving is actually done with bark stripped from the limb itself. Clever way to make sure the nests stay firmly fixed!
Apologies for the delay in posting this video, uploading it in HD while keeping it smooth has proved a nightmare. In the end I uploaded it to Vimeo instead of YouTube and it worked. Here it is!

Tags: birding, birds, Cairns, fz35, fz38, metallic starling, nesting