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31 January 2024: Day 13, Livingstone, Zambia — Highway Scholar Southern Africa Birding Safari. Click on right here to see (usually) the place I’m at the moment.
Africa has no hummingbirds (Trochilidae) however they’ve a household of nectar-feeding birds with lots of the similar traits: Sunbirds (Nectariniidae). Although the 2 households are unrelated they’re an instance of convergent evolution, outfitted with the identical instruments and habits.
The similarities between hummingbirds and sunbirds are putting. Each have:
- Brilliantly coloured males, usually iridescent
- Sexually dimorphic females
- Lengthy curved payments for gathering nectar
- Brief wings and quick, direct flight
- Feed totally on nectar
- Feed bugs and spiders to their younger
- Are vital flower pollinators
- Most well-liked flowers are pink or orange, lengthy and tubular
- Those who dwell the place it’s chilly can enter torpor.
Their variations are additionally attention-grabbing:
Hummingbirds vs. Sunbirds
| Hummingbirds | Sunbirds |
|---|---|
| New World solely | Previous World: Africa, Asia, Australasia |
| Vary in dimension from 1.59 g to twenty grams | Vary in dimension from 5 g to 45 grams |
| Hover and have tiny ft | Perch with regular ft |
| Do not hang around with household | Normally present in pairs; typically in household or bigger teams |
| Some make lengthy migrations | Sedentary or short-distance migrations |
| Hummingbird beaks cannot pierce flowers. That is the job of flowerpiercers. | Sunbirds pierce flowers if the nectar is simply too arduous to succeed in. |
On our tour we’ll encounter two species of sunbirds: the scarlet-chested sunbird (Chalcomitra senegalensis) and the amethyst sunbird (Chalcomitra amethystina).
The scarlet-chested could be very iridescent and, amazingly, is taken into account a pest in cocoa plantations as a result of it spreads parasitic mistletoes based on Wikipedia.
The amethyst sunbird has fewer iridescent spots …
… however an attention-grabbing voice.
Lovely as sunbirds are, I’m glad we’ve got hummingbirds as an alternative.
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