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Ludwig's Double-Collared Sunbird | Cinnyris ludovicensis
Berghoningzuiger | Suimanga Angoleño
Ludwig's Double-Collared Sunbird is a highland double-collared sunbird with two widely separated populations: the nominate form in the western highlands of Angola and the subspecies whytei on the Nyika Plateau on the border of Malawi and Zambia. It is a near-endemic of the region.
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Voice
A sharp, repeated tchik-tchik and a thin tsee. The song is a fast, rattling and twittering series of high notes lasting a few seconds, from a bush top or forest edge.
Recording: Niall Perrins — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13 to 14 cm, with a medium-length decurved bill. The male has the head, throat and upperparts metallic green and the uppertail coverts blue-violet; below the throat come a narrow blue line and a broad scarlet breast band, below that a grey-olive belly. Yellow pectoral tufts appear in display. The female is olive-grey above and paler grey with a yellowish wash below, without streaking. Juveniles resemble the female.
Confusion species
Western Miombo Sunbird (Cinnyris gertrudis) lives lower in miombo, is smaller and shorter-bodied, and has grey uppertail coverts and a narrower red band. Forest Double-Collared Sunbird (Cinnyris fuelleborni) occurs in montane forest in northern Malawi, is almost the same size and is barely separable in the field; use habitat and the known distribution. Malachite Sunbird (Nectarinia famosa) is much larger, wholly green and has long tail streamers.
Habitat
Montane forest edge, clearings in montane forest, bracken-briar scrub, Protea shrubland and montane grassland with bushes, roughly above 1,600 m. It feeds at flowering shrubs, Leonotis, aloes and protea flowers.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In Angola in the western highlands, from Cuanza Sul and the Bailundo highlands south through Huambo and Benguela to the Serra da Chela in Huíla. The subspecies whytei inhabits the Nyika Plateau in northern Malawi and adjacent north-eastern Zambia. Hardly known beyond the region.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Angola readily found at Mount Moco and in the forest patches and scrub around Huambo and the Tundavala gorge near Lubango. On Nyika the species keeps to scrub and forest edges around Chelinda and along the margins of the montane forest patches. Watch especially at flowering proteas and Leonotis.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The range is small and fragmented and montane forest in Angola has been heavily reduced by clearance, grazing and fire, but the species also uses scrub and forest edge and is locally common. The Nyika Plateau is protected as a national park.
Scientific name
Cinnyris ludovicensis | (Bocage, 1868)
Bocage described the species in 1868 as Nectarinea ludovicensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cinnyris was introduced in 1816 by Cuvier, GLCFD. Cinnyris derives from the Greek kinnuris, the name of a small bird mentioned by the lexicographer Hesychius that cannot be identified further. ludovicensis refers to the Duque de Bragança district (now Malanje) in Angola, named after Luís I (1838–1889), Duke of Bragança and King of Portugal; Ludovicus is the Latin form of Luís. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bibala, Namibe, Angola.