Purple-rumped Sunbird

One wild plant in our garden , sustains four species of sunbirds. In my previous posts I had featured two of them, the Vigours's and the Lotens sunbirds. Today its the turn of the Purple-rumped Sunbird ( Leptocoma zeylonica). The fourth one Purple sunbird, is an occasional visitor and I hope he gives us an visit soon. Unlike the previously featured sunbirds, I have not seen the purple-rumped sunbird, hover on flowers for nectar, it prefers the less energy consuming method of perching and sipping on nectar. The bird featured above is the male, the female has greyish-white throat, yellow breast , olive rump , whitish flanks and brown wing panel.

Loten's Sunbird

It was raining today ( what a relief!) after 12 days of sunshine. As a nature photographer, the tendency for me is to sit back and enjoy the rains. For a change today, I decided to brave the rains and went about photographing sunbirds. Despite the overcast sky, the light was just about enough to get a bit of action. The birds did not disappoint, they braved the heavy showers as they went about drinking nectar from their favourite plants. Today I feature the Lotens Sunbird (Cimmyris lotenia ), a resident of Southern India, the bird has a lovely metallic luster. It rarely hovers to drink, preferring to perch on a branch and drink nectar- today though it seemed to be in a good mood. 

Vigors's Sunbird -Female

A few weeks ago, I had done a post on a male Vigors's Sunbird . Today, it's the turn of the less flamboyant but equally graceful female Vigors's Sunbird ( Aethopyga (siparaja) vigorsii ). These sunbirds, visit our garden everyday and it is a great pleasure to see an increase in their number in recent days. This is just my observation, but I feel that the female hovers much lesser than the male and prefers to have its dose of nectar quietly perched. The male, on the other hand, as most male birds are is quite showy and enjoys giving quite a display as it hovers to feed on the flowers. 

Vigors's Sunbird

Today is my wife's birthday and a special bird for my extra special girl. The Vigors's Sunbird ( Aethopyga (siparaja vigorsii ) is a daily visitor to our garden. Infact, there seems to be a regular stream of this Sunbird, that keep coming in at regular intervals during the mornings and evenings. One of Aarina's ( the birthday girl mentioned above) way, to brighten up her day, is to just look at this hovering bird. It is full of colours, sprighty, and has a dulcet voice. What more can one ask from a visitor? 

Vigors's Sunbird

The Vigors's Sunbird ( Aethopyga (siparaja ) vigorsii ) was once classified as the Crimson Sunbird and today the bird has got its due and recognised as a separate sub-species. It is a exclusive western ghats resident and slightly larger than the Crimson Sunbird.
The bird visits our home everyday. When we first came here, we saw that sunbirds loved this particular plant that grew in our garden. Today, we have managed to grow three additional plants and it is a delight to see our place being a watering hole for various sunbirds, including this colourful Vigors. 

Crimson Sunbird

Dear regular readers, it has been ages since I updated this blog. A lot of changes have happened in the intervening years. I got married- changed my camera system from Sony to Canon and developed interest in conservation as well. I will endeavor to keep the posts flowing regularly from now on.
Today's post features a Crimson Sunbird. The most colourful of the sunbirds that visit our home. There are more than a couple of sub-species, of this beautiful bird in India. This male regularly visits in the morning for his dose of nectar from the flowers that you can see in the photographs. I have planted 3 such plants and all seem to be doing well.
It was about 10 in the morning, there was a cold breeze blowing, lush green all around and I was having a lovely time speaking with my wife. It seemed nothing would make me move from my perch- that is until the sunbird came fluttering around. As if by instinct, I just disappeared and appeared with my camera gear. The next thing that my wife could hear was the sound of clicking shutters. Looks like she has now got used to this routine now.
P.S. - Wife say's she hasn't got used to it yet.. 

Sunbirds

Lotens Sunbird.
A female Purple Rumped Sunbird. I have posted photographs of sunbirds and some notes earlier on this blog. Posted these new photographs, since this time around the framing was better.
The bird sometimes hovers like a humming bird while sucking nectar, giving a false impression to many, that it may be a humming bird.
Clicked at Nacinola in Goa

Lotens Sunbird

Early morning today, I was photographing a Lotens Sunbird, feeding on the nectar of coconut flowers. I kept following the bird, through my camera viewfinder, Continuously photographing it. After a while I noticed a sudden change in it's plumage, as apparent in the third photograph. Two bright yellow tufts appeared on either side of its breast out of nowhere. I kept on clicking and soon managed to shoot the fourth photograph. The Upper bird is the Male Sunbird, the one that I was following and the lower one in an acrobatic position is a Female Sunbird. The Reason for the change in the male's plumage was the presence of a female around and he was obviously trying to attract her. Male Sunbirds frequently bring out these beautiful tufts from the underside of their wings, during breeding season and I consider myself lucky to photograph this sequence.
Sunbirds are very small birds, this one was may be 10 cm in length, they also are swift fliers and rarely perch at one place for long. These factors in addition to the height of the coconut tree made photographing this bird a little difficult. I was shooting on Aperture priority with widest aperture and placed the camera on a short tripod and laying low as inconspicuous as possible.
Since the Underside of a coconut tree is dark, to achieve a faster shutter speed, I clicked the photographs at ISO 200, hence slight noise is visible, when you zoom in the Photograph.