Southern Double-collared Sunbird Cinnyris chalybeus
Cape Town, South Africa. September 2006

The beautiful Southern (or Lesser) Double-collared Sunbird Cinnyris chalybeus is a common South African endemic found from the coastal scrub and fynbos around the Cape inland to the Karoo and then discontinously north almost as far as Zimbabwe.

Found in good numbers at the superb Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens, pairs are often seen zipping around from flower to flower collecting nectar. On a visit there in September 2006 I’d already had fairly good views of a number of these birds when - as I walked towards the exit on my way out - I came across the male in the photos below making brief hovering forays over a large display of (I think) Namaqualand daisies: I’ve never seen a sunbird behave like this before, but that’s probably a reflection of their relative scarcity in the UK (ie not found within hundreds of miles) and the time I’ve spent looking at them rather than an indication of how often they might behave like this…

Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens -
all the photos on this page were taken here in September 2006.

 

Males

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Female

 

Shortly after posting these photos I sent a question to the African Birding Yahoo group asking whether its members had seen this “hovering” behaviour before.

I recieved a number of interesting responses which basically confirmed my suspicion that I’ve still a lot to learn!

• Callan Cohen, SA: “Sunbirds do hover fairly regularly if there isn’t a good perch. But looking at this one on that daisy, I suspect it is nabbing insects and not nectar.”
• Mark Brown, SA: “The hovering pics were taken in front of what looks like some kind of daisy to me (I am not a botanist!), which does not produce the type or quantity of nectar that the sunbird uses. My gut feel is that this bird was taking insects from the flowers. I have been studying Sunbirds for almost 10 years now, and am moving more into the field of pollination biology, and it just seems unlikely to me that the bird was taking nectar from this flower. Insects do form a large part of their diet though, and seems quite plausibe to me that this is what he was after. On the hovering front, I have seen several occasions where sunbirds will hover, either when collecting spider webs for nesting material, or when feeding on insects, or rarely when drinking nectar.”
• David Nowell, Italy: “I have seen it fairly often when I used to live in South Africa. I also saw it in Kenya last year in November…… I would not call it “normal” though as it happens too infrequently…”
• Ron Orenstein: “I have seen hovering behaviour in Souimanga Sunbirds in Madagascar and Black-throated Sunbirds in Malaysia,among others; I suspect the ability is widespread in the family.”

All photographs copyright Charlie Moores