To add to Brian's comments, young Eastern Spinebills (which are about at the
moment) have greenish backs.
Cheers,
Peter
From: brian fleming <>
Reply-To: brian fleming <>
To: Stephen Gross <>
CC: Birding-Aus <>
Subject: Re: [BIRDING-AUS] Hummingbird in Sydney?
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:33:12 +1100
Stephen Gross wrote:
On the weekend I was down in Sydney with my brother and sister-in-law at
Prestons, western Sydney.
On Thursday evening my sister-in-law saw a tiny honeyeater-type bird
feeding in her backyard on her agapanthus. She showed me some video
footage she shot which is very blurry with the animal constantly moving
and I had difficulty trying to ID it as a bird or an insect. When pausing
the animal certainly looks like a bird (very blurry unfortunately) and my
sister-in-law said she identified it as a bird and watched it from about a
metre away for about fifteen minutes.
The identification is of a tiny green bird with a bright orange lower
half of the body. The orange has black markings on it. The bird has a very
long curved black beak. The only possible ID I could come up with was a
hummingbird, it certainly didn't look like any Australian honeyeater.
I have the video tape and am planning to put it onto my computer and see
if I can get a clearer view. Would anyone have an idea of the hummingbird
species this would be, if it is a hummingbird? or an alternate
possibility. I'll let people know how capturing the video footage to
computer works out.
Steve Gross
Orange NSW
My opinion is that your sister-in-law's bird is an Eastern Spinebill. The
bright tan flanks can look orange in bright light, and it does have black
markings. Very smart, and it is a most strikingly talented hoverer as it
feeds on agapanthus, fuchsia, Chinese lanterns as well as Correa flowers.
Sweet piping song which sounds like a whistling kettle coming up to the
boil.
Non-birding friends have often asked me "What is our humming-bird's real
name?" after seeing a Spinebill hover beside native or other shrubs.
While small and slender for a honeyeater, it is not as tiny as the other
hoverer, the Weebill, but the weebill lacks bright or striking colours and
is a very small rounded bird with a very short bill. it hovers as it takes
insect life from gum-leaves etc.
Anthea Fleming
in Ivanhoe, Vic.
We often have Spinebills on the fuchsia (old-fashioned variety with small
red flowers) outside the computer's window
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