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Fraser's Sunbird | Deleornis fraseri
Roodpluimhoningzuiger | Suimanga de Fraser
Fraser's Sunbird is an inconspicuous, plain olive-green sunbird of the rainforest that behaves more like a warbler than a sunbird. Within the region it occurs only in the forests of north-western Angola.
Voice
A high, thin tsip or tseet as contact call and a dry tchik. The song is a soft, high and inconspicuous twitter, so the species often goes unnoticed.
Recording: Étienne Leroy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11 to 13 cm, with a fairly short, almost straight, pointed bill. Both sexes are olive-green above and slightly paler, yellowish olive below, without any metallic gloss; a narrow pale ring surrounds the eye. The male has scarlet pectoral tufts, visible only when he lifts his wings; in the female they are absent or small. The legs are grey. Juveniles are duller and greener.
Confusion species
Little Green Sunbird (Anthreptes seimundi) is smaller, with a shorter tail and bill and more yellowish underparts. Olive Sunbird (Cyanomitra olivacea) is larger, with a long, clearly decurved bill and yellow pectoral tufts. Warblers and green greenbuls can also cause confusion; note the pointed sunbird bill and the calm, searching way of foraging.
Habitat
Undergrowth and mid-storey of lowland and mid-altitude rainforest, old secondary forest and dense forest edges. It patiently searches for insects and spiders among the foliage, in dead-leaf clusters and along lianas, often in mixed flocks with other forest birds; it rarely visits flowers.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Within the region confined to the rainforests of north-western Angola, with records in Uíge, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul, Bengo and the Luanda area. Beyond the region from Sierra Leone through the rainforest of West and Central Africa to Uganda, and on Bioko.
How and when to look
In the forests of Kumbira and around Ndalatando, look for mixed flocks in the undergrowth; a plain olive-green bird probing dead leaves like a warbler, with a pointed bill, is probably this species. Wait for it to lift its wings to see the red pectoral tufts.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is widespread in the African rainforest. In Angola its habitat is small and fragmented, and clearance of the escarpment forests threatens the isolated population there.
Scientific name
Deleornis fraseri | (Jardine & Selby, 1843)
Jardine & Selby described the species in 1843 as Anthreptes fraseri; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Deleornis was introduced in 1977 by Wolters. Deleornis combines Delius, 'the Delian', a byname of the Greek sun god Apollo, with the Greek ornis, 'bird' — a 'sun-bird', as the family is called in English. fraseri honours the English zoologist Louis Fraser (c. 1819–c. 1883), curator of the Zoological Society of London's museum, who collected in West Africa in 1841–1842. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bioko (Fernando Po), Equatorial Guinea.