Flying beauties of Himachal Pradesh

Crimson Sunbird feeds largely on nectar,just in line with other sunbirds.A bout 11cm in size,one can see it hovering in the air around flowers.It perches to suck the nectar,but rarely stays for long at one place and continuously keeps on changing its position from one branch and flower to another. The long beak is typically made to suck the nectar from flowers,but at times  it consumes insects especially for feeding young ones and to meet the protein requirements during breeding season . An Adult Male The adult male has a crimson/maroon coloured chest,sides and upper back.Lower back is olive green with a bluish green tail and head.The females have an olive green back and yellowish underparts. Crimson Sunbird Female Sub Adult (Photo Suneet Bhardwaj) The subadults can be seen with various proportions of  crimson colour around throat, chest and ...

If we go by dictionary,the word Raptor means a bird of prey, e.g an eagle or hawk. Whenever we hear the word raptor the immediate phrase coming to our mind is "a bird of prey".The two terms are synonymously used for these birds which are commonly known as Raptors.The term Raptor has its origin in Latin verb Rapere and it literally means a plunderer,signifying that the raptors forcefully seize and carry away their prey. Yellow Billed Blue Magpie The foremost character of all the birds of prey is that they eat meat.But it does not distinguish them as a class,because there are many meat eating birds like Magpies(see photograph of Yellow billed Blue magpie carrying its prey in beak) and Crows.However these other meat eating birds do not use their  feet to kill and carry the prey and instead they depend on their beaks.The Raptors on the other hand make use of their strong legs and sharp talons to get hold of the prey and take it away. Raptors have very s...