Purple Sunbird, a study in wonderment

She is dainty

The first view of a pair of the purple sunbird can make you doubt the saying, birds of a feather flock together. The feathers of a male and female sunbird could not be more different than they are. Its name, purple sunbird, comes from the male, some of whose feathers acquire a metallic purple shade under soft sunlight; in harsh sunlight, it appears to be a shiny black although it is a combination of brown and glossed blue feathers. The female is creamish-golden in its underbody and a dusty brown on top, which makes it almost invisible, whether in foliage or in the branches of plants .

It is she who constructs the nest.

Plastic threads give strength to the hanging nest.

From its down-curved bill to the eyes, and along the cream underbodyline that stands out against the brown on top, the female is exceptionally pretty. It is also a study in wonderment: the construction of the pouch-like nest, hanging from a single, firm and camouflaged twig, involves ten days of painstaking collection of bark, straw, soft material like cottonwool and feathers besides a variety of threads, including cobweb and plastic; incubating the eggs and feeding the hatchlings is another four weeks of work, and it is the mother who does these tasks almost single-handedly.

Feeding is also mama's duty.

Papa keeps vigil over the nest for a month, from the time the eggs are laid till the babies are ready to fly

The energy for this ardous work comes from a 10-centimeter-long body that weighs as many grams. A tireless worker, the tiniest avian in our gardens is a nectarian although the babies are also fed insects. The female is largely quiet; it is the male who does all the talking, be it during courtship or when watching over the eggs and chicks. Sitting on high perches around the nest, it is a fierce guardian, taking on bulbul and other predators twice or thrice its size.

The courtship

Families of the bird are found all over India wherever there is greenery, largely in the plains and not higher than 1500 meters in the hills. The sunbird, say the text books, breeds chiefly in dry season, but a bird-watcher would not confirm this. Except in the freezing weeks from December to mid January in a normal winter, purple sunbird breeds throughout the year.

It cannot get prettier than this, a female baby, two mornings after taking wings.

Its humming zit-zit and chwin-chwin sounds are not loud and draw little attention unless you have an ear for bird sounds. The bird does not move long distance and has no trouble adjusting to human habitation. Its tiny form glued to the flowers in our balconies and gardens, the sunbird is hardly visible, but is a sight to watch when it sucks nectar while being airborne — just like the hummingbird.

(The author is a senior journalist, based in Delhi)