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 ...

About 11 cm in size the Crimson sunbird like other sunbirds mainly depends upon the nectar of the flowers. Its long curved beak is typically shaped for that purpose.The male has a maroon back with  long greenish blue tail and olive underparts.The female with an olive-green back and yellowish-olive underparts lacks the long greenish tail.The bird can be seen upto an altitude of about 1800 meters in the open forests,gardens and orchards hovering over the flowers.Red coloured flowers are its favourite, probably due their camouflaging effect.  Like other birds of its category the flight of Crimson Sunbird is very fast and it hardly stays at a point for few seconds, which makes it very difficult to photograph the bird. The Male Crimson sunbird has also been reported to be very aggressive towards the intruders in its territory. It has very often been seen attacking its reflections in the water and in the rear view mirrors of the vehicles. The colour pattern shown ab...

About 10 cm in size the male has a metallic purple, coloured body. The female has got light yellowish underparts and the upper parts are dark greyish in colour. In non-breeding plumage the male is similar to the female but the wings are comparatively dark and a broad black stripe runs down middle of the breast. The bird is quite common in open forests and gardens and can be seen upto an altitude of about 1600 mtrs in Himalayas. It is fond of the flower nectar but is also dependent on insects.Its slender curved bill is adapted for probing flower tubes and sucking the nectar. This way the bird helps a great deal in cross-polination.