Polygamy in the wild

Recently a friend narrated an interesting obsrvation of polygamous breeding of Oriental Magpie Robin in the wild. I trust his observatory skills (well, some people who are not as keen in Magpie chciks collection may mistaken a family unit as a two adult females with a male)

Anyway as the story goes, an old orchid flower pot that was hanging in front of a house became nesting home to 2 female Magpie Robin. Only a single male was seen in the vicinity. A total of 8 eggs was laid in the same flower pot, out of which all 8 hatched.

Asking permission from the Malay house owner, he took 3 chicks away from the clutch after making sure they are males and left the 5 females behind. It is interesting as this is the first time that I have heard of such nest sharing in territorial birds like the Magpie Robin.

Shows how little I understand and how much more there is to learn about our own local birds :)