106



Mr. F. E. Blaauw,



SUNBIRDS IN THEIR NATIVE HAUNTS.


By F. E. Blaauw.


When I landed at Capetown in the spring of 1914, which of

course was autumn in South Africa, I was curious to see what one

might call the South African humming-birds, which however are

known under the name of sunbirds, and which Levaillant called

“ petits sucriers.” I had not long to wait before I saw a specimen.


I stopped at the Mount Nelson Hotel, and the day after my

arrival, sitting in the charming garden which surrounds it, my atten¬

tion was drawn by the trembling movement of some twigs of a fine

scarlet flowering hybiscus bush. The reason of the movement was

soon apparent, for a little golden green, blue and scarlet bird followed

the branchlets until it reached the flower and then put its long bill

sideways between the scarlet petals, probing the centre of the flower

for honey or insects. This was quite a different thing from what a

Chilian, or I believe any other species of humming-bird would have

done. Those would have come flying; coming from somewhere,

without it being almost possible to see them come, and hovering in

the air in front of the flower, they would have examined the con¬

tents in that position and would be gone a moment later.


My sunbird, and, I may say at once, the seven species

which I watched, almost invariably acted in the way described

above. Only when the structure of the bush or the flower made it

impossible to follow this custom, they would hover in front of the

flower like a humming-bird.


After having hopped from branchlet to branchlet and examined

all the likely flowers the little bird flew away, and also in its flight

showed itself quite distinct from the humming-birds, which fly like

a flash so that the eye can hardly follow the movement. Never did

I see a humming-bird jump from branch to branch, they sit or else

they fly.


The bird in question, which I saw in the garden at Capetown,

was a male Cinnyris chalybcus , and this species is, I am glad to say,

quite common there. A couple of weeks later I was stopping a day

at Caledon, also in the south of Cape Colony. The hotel in which I

stayed was built against the slope of a volcanic mountain, where



