Covered Beak To Tail In Striking Yellow And Green, Makes This Bird Stand Out In Ways Other Birds Just Can’t – Meet The Common Iora!

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The common iora (Aegithina tiphia) is a small passerine bird with dark green to black upper parts when the male is trying to look his best in the breeding season. His wings are black with white wing bars, the tail blackish and rump greenish. His chest and belly is bright yellow, his crown black, and his face also yellow. Non-breeding males have greenish upperparts, looking almost like a female.

Females and males look very similar, with females looking more green.

Both sexes having a pointed bill which is blue-grey. Their eyes are black. Legs and feet are slate blue-grey

The Common Iora lives in and is endemic to India, SW China, and Southeast Asia.

These birds like to live in forests and well-wooded areas, scrubs, cultivated areas, and gardens. It avoids deep forests.

Common Iora dines on insects such as grasshoppers, dragonflies, mantises, and caterpillars. They will also take insects, spiders, fruit, berries, and nectar.

Common Iora’s like to next in a fork, at the end of a branch, usually in a small tree. The nest is a loose mixture of grass and plant fibers woven together and strengthened with spider web silk externally. The female lays up to 4 greenish-white eggs, spotted with red.

This birds range is expanding due to the creation of more orchards and gardens, and it helps out by taking part in pest control in fruit orchards.