The Heaven for Sunbirds

It was sunny, breezy, and cool last Sunday morning at Symphony lake. The parakeet flowers were blooming, so were banana flowers.

parakeet flowers 

A sweet smooth bird call reached my ears, I looked around, a magpie robin was singing on top of a small light post. Just then another magpie robin flew in to land on the post. The singing bird tried to deter the incoming bird by running toward the newcomer, and then back to its old spot keep making calls!

Just then an olive backed sunbird landed on the flower right in front me started drinking nectar from it. This is a regular scene for us, nothing special, we kept walking. 

A red bird came into view - a crimson sunbird landed on another flower plant. It circled around the stem, and moved up and down drinking the nectar as well. It did not fly away when we got closer, but kind of posed for us to take pictures! This time I noticed the thin double black strips on its bright red throat for the first time. That's something new.

olive back sunbird

crimson sunbird

Away from the flowers, one olive backed sunbird landed on a big leaf full of morning dews, started to roll in it, rubbing itself against the dews on leaf. Nearby a female olive backed sunbird flew to a flower petal from below, seemed to drinking the dews on the leaf, not the nectar.

A juvenile olive backed sunbird (per coloration on its neck) was resting on big flower petal, looking around.  

flying to the petal from below, drinking water?

this olive backed sunbird might be a juvenile based on the coloration at throat 

As these were not amazing enough, a female olive backed sunbird landed on a pink banana flower, started to drink nectar. Shortly later, a male olive backed sunbird landed on the same flower. The female quickly scuttled to hide under one petal! After a while, it flew away!

Another pair of sunbirds appeared in the view, might be the same pair as those on the banana flower?

It is mating season. I saw a sunbird building a nest nearby a couple days ago. There must be several bird nests around there. 

In all that time, the sunbirds kept foraging,  kept making calls, the chorus of bird songs kept going.

The flower field is a heaven for the sunbirds!