Fig Tree Birding: The Easiest Way to See Forest Birds

There is a lazy way to see forest birds and it works better than walking. Find a fig tree in fruit, sit down within view of it, and stay there.

A fruiting Ficus is the single most productive thing in an Indian forest. Everything comes to it, repeatedly, through the day, and none of it is bothered by somebody sitting still at a sensible distance. Every photograph below came from one tree in one morning.

Why figs work like this

Figs do not fruit on a season the way mango or jamun do. Individual trees fruit at unpredictable times, heavily, and often more than once a year — which means at any given moment a forest has a few trees carrying almost all of its available fruit.

For a fruit-eating bird, that tree is the only restaurant open. Find it and you have found the birds. Ask a local guide where the figs are fruiting and you will get better information than any species list can give you.

The canopy fruit-eaters

The first thing a fig tree teaches you is how much you have been walking past. Green birds in green foliage, feeding silently, barely shifting position — a group of fifteen can be completely invisible in a tree you are standing directly beneath.

They also do not perch the way you expect. To reach fruit at the end of a thin branch a heavy bird has to clamber, hang and stretch, sometimes upside down, and it is that ungainly acrobatic feeding you notice long before you see a whole bird.

When you do get a clear view, photograph all of it rather than just the head. On a great many canopy species the useful features are the leg colour, the shoulder, the undertail and the exact shade of the crown — precisely the parts a tight portrait crops out.

Leafbirds hide in plain sight

The Golden-fronted Leafbird is the best argument that bright is not the same as visible. It is a vivid leaf green with a golden-orange forehead, a black bib and a blue moustachial stripe, and it disappears completely two feet inside a canopy. Colour that looks unmissable in a photograph is camouflage in a tree.

Leafbirds are also accomplished mimics, working other birds’ calls into their song. A leafbird imitating a drongo is a real hazard when you are birding by ear. And in the Western Ghats and the southern peninsula, what was long treated as this bird is now often separated as Jerdon’s Leafbird — a good example of why a name in an older book and a name in a newer one may not match.

Not everything is there for the fruit

The Black-hooded Oriole comes for both fruit and insects, and it is the one visitor here you will not struggle to name: brilliant yellow, a solid black hood, and a coral-pink bill. Orioles are surprisingly shy for their brightness and tend to feed inside the canopy rather than out on the exposed branches.

A fruiting fig is also a fly trap. Split and rotting fruit brings insects in numbers and caterpillars work the leaves, so insect-eaters turn up alongside the fruit-eaters — small birds that sit on a thin perch, dart out, take something in mid-air and return to almost the same twig. If you want flight shots, set up on those, because they are entirely predictable.

How to do it properly

Find the tree first. Look for fallen fruit and droppings on the ground beneath — that tells you the tree is actually being used.
Sit, do not stand. A seated human is a much less alarming shape, and you can hold still for an hour without fidgeting.
Choose your background deliberately. Take a position with the sun behind you and a gap in the canopy to shoot through. You are committing to that frame for the next hour.
Give it forty minutes. Birds that flushed when you arrived come back within twenty if nothing moves.
Listen more than you look. Soft whistles, knocking and rustling in the crown tell you what is up there long before you see any of it.
Take a record shot early, however poor. A bad photograph you can identify later beats a beautiful one of a head.
Do not use call playback. At a fruiting tree there is no need, and it does real harm in the breeding season.

Identify afterwards, not in the moment

One habit worth building: do not decide what a bird is while you are looking at it. Note what you can actually see — size against the leaves, leg colour, crown, bill shape, what it was eating, how it moved — and settle the name later with a field guide.

Canopy birds are badly served by snap identification. Many species come in more than one plumage, close relatives can differ only in the head pattern, and recent splits mean older and newer books disagree. Recording features and deciding afterwards is slower, and it is right more often.

A note on bird names

We identify these birds ourselves, from photographs taken in the field, and we do not always get it right. A great many Indian species are close cousins separated only by a head pattern, a leg colour or a wingbar, and several have been split or renamed in recent years — so two good field guides can genuinely disagree about the same bird.

Where we are not certain, we say so rather than guess. If you think we have named a bird wrongly here, please tell us — we are still learning this ourselves, and we would far rather correct a name than leave a wrong one standing.

Frequently asked questions

Why are fig trees good for birdwatching?

Figs fruit heavily and unpredictably, so a fruiting tree is often the main food source in that patch of forest. Fruit-eaters visit repeatedly through the day, and the insects at the fruit bring insect-eaters in too.

How do I find a fruiting fig tree?

Look for fallen fruit and droppings under large trees, and ask local guides — they generally know which trees are in fruit.

How long should I wait at one tree?

At least forty minutes. Birds you disturbed on arrival usually return within twenty if you keep still.

Why are canopy birds so hard to photograph?

You are usually looking up at them against bright sky, which loses colour and detail. Moving sideways for a more level angle helps more than better equipment.

Is the Golden-fronted Leafbird the same as Jerdon’s Leafbird?

They were long treated as one species. Birds of the Western Ghats and southern peninsula are now often separated as Jerdon’s Leafbird, so books differ depending on their age.