THE ORANGE-BELLIED FLOWER PECKER 
Diceeum trigofwstigmn trigonostignm {Scop.) 
Description : — The male has the top of the head and neck, 
the wings and tail slaty blue, the chin and throat ashy grey, 
the breast, abdomen and back bright orange tinged with gr ten 
on the lower back and rump. 
The female tacks all the bright colours of her mate and 
is mostly oUye green, tinged with yellow on the rump and 
abdomen. 
She is usually to be identified in the field by the fact of 
her very distinctive consort's presence* 
The iris is brown, the bill black and the feet slaty or black. 
The total length of this tiny bird is about inches and 
the wing measures just less than 2 indies. 
Distribution : — Burma, Siam, etc., the Malay Peninsula, 
Borneo, Snmatra and Java, but several sub-species are recog- 
nised from within this area. 
Status in Singapore : — This is the common flower-peeker 
of the island and it is by no means a scarce bird although from 
its habit of frequenting tall trees it escapes popular notice to 
a great extent. 
Field iV'otf J : —Isolated birds or more commonly still 
small parties, may be seen at times in shrubs in the Botanic 
Gardens and then on account of the very characteristic colour 
of the plumage neither this nor the other common local species 
of flower-pecker can be mistaken. By searching with bino- 
culars the crowns of tall flowering shade trees large numbers 
of flower-peckers may often be noticed swarming about the 
topmost branches, very active little birds, and all as busy as 
bees in a hive : from the top of the tree one hears an almost 
continually chorus of chit-chit-chit. 
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