Other Sunbirds

Two photographs of the male. The male is distinguished by his black collar feathers. In fact, in good light, up close, the feathers appear slightly steely blue. The female, by contrast, has yellow collar feathers. I don't have any really good photographs of the female. I apologize for the horizontal lines across the second photograph.

A visitor to the nesting site. When the chicks were almost ready to leave, some other sunbirds came to visit the nesting site. The even tried to steal some of the nesting material and enter the nest. They could not steal the nesting material, since by that time, the top of the nest was attached to the line with sticky tape. See the Sunbird Letters page for details. They could not enter the nest because the chicks inside rejected them.
Notice the collar feathers of the visitor, that they are not as black as the male's. This leads me to suspect that the dark collar appears after the chicks have left the nest, so that it is impossible to determine the gender of a baby bird still in the nest.