My vote is still for the Hawk Moth- I doubt that one could watch and film a
Spinebill feeding from a metre away for 15 minutes. Well inside the bird's
personal space and also unlike a Spinebill to feed at the same patch for
such a long time.
Cheers
Colin Driscoll
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Peter Ewin
Sent: Monday, 28 November 2005 8:46 PM
To: ;
Cc:
Subject: Hummingbird in Sydney?
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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