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.

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.

What is a constant surprise to me is how small a patch of vegetation is needed to attract Olive-backed Sunbirds in Bangkok. At our house we only have a tiny patch of habitat available for the sunbirds in our yard and balcony but the sunbirds still come every day to have a feed on whichever flowers are blooming at the time. In this photo you can see the small collection of plants that attracts the sunbirds.

Of course it is not just my plants they feast on but all the neighbours too who have similar collections of plants - they are community sunbirds! In fact when you put together all the plants in similar yards along our street, it becomes obvious that these little birds have quite a territory even in what at first appears a wildlife free zone.

In particular, in our yard, the sunbird seem to enjoy feeding from these flowers below. As you can see they are tiny, clustered flowerettes, with no opening for a bird or insect to get into the nectar chamber. This highlights the Olive-backed Sunbirds flower piercing ability and role as a "nectar thief".

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.