My Sunbirds In Bangkok

Olive-backed Sunbirds are fun to watch whilst feeding. In fact I often watch them feeding whilst I am feeding since they frequently come down to forage whilst I am having breakfast - in a way they are my breakfast companions!

Olive-backed Sunbirds have two different feeding strategies:

1. Nectar Drinking - It is obvious from the photos that the Olive-backed Sunbird has a special bill, this is for drinking nectar. However, it often does not insert its bill into a flower's aperture to get nectar (although it often will), therefore assisting in the pollenation of the flower, but instead pierces the base of the flower, "stealing" the nectar. A neat little trick!

Olive-backed Sunbirds usually perform this trick whilst perched, although they sometimes hover in the fashion of a hummingbird as the one in the photo here is doing.

They will also drink from nectar feeders designed for hummingbirds: hummingbird nectar feeders.

2. Insect Gleaning - The Olive-backed Sunbirds is rather partial to small insects and other tiny invertebrates, something which should please the local gardeners. Rather than picking insects from leaves or pecking at them, the sunbird "gleans" the insects with a sort of sideswipe action with the bill across leaves and petals. Occasionally this species will make a special effort to chase an invertebrate.

Olive-backed Sunbird is a remarkably ecologically tolerant bird. It's natural habitat is forest and mangroves but it has managed to adapt to live in virtually all habitats including monocultural palm oil and rubber plantations, cities, gardens and all sorts of cultivation with scattered trees.

This extract from Craig Robson's A Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand illustrates my point.

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