The scaly-breasted Munia is a widespread resident species in India. It is a tiny (10-12cms) shy bird making it a pretty challenging subject for photography. There is however a sure shot way to get close and photograph this bird – find a nesting pair.

And we were fortunate to have found a nest during our recent visit to Foresthills in Masinagudi. It was interesting to observe this breeding pair and we got about a minute to photograph them whenever they came to the nest, which was once every hour. The frenzied activity of the birds was quite a sight and here are a series of images that we captured over a span of a few hours.

All images have been taken with our trusted D300, 300mm f2.8 lens with 2x TC mounted on a tripod.