Malachite Sunbird 3 (Nectarinia famosa)

WOW WOW WOW that is mega marvelous, one of the best shots i saw for this stunning sunbird.

Fabulous behavioural shot with wonderful colours.

exceptional shot ; we were there in October too but never got anything nearly as good as this. Top class

Thank you for the kind words, everyone.

Max - it was essentially luck. We had been to Kirstenbosch eight years previously and got one blurry shot of a Malachite. On this trip, we had seen a couple elsewhere, but none that could be photographed.

After a longish day at Kirstenbosch with no Malachites, we sat down on a bench at the top end of the gardens and I remarked that the old blurry shot had been taken at that very same spot. After a few minutes of quiet, this male Malachite in full breeding plumage arrived and began feeding on the proteas, right in front of us.

The plant on which it was supping was no more than ten feet from the exact location of the blurry shot eight years previously. Unless there is some magnetic attraction relating to that tiny patch of earth, it was the dumbest of dumb luck.

In 60 seconds, it was gone, but that was enough.

If you're ever back there, go up to the area where Francolins are running around and find a bench facing south where Pincushion Proteas are in bloom; give it a few minutes...

Beautiful

That's a beautiful image John - excellent work lad. Many thanks for showing us this sunbird.

is there any way to check/search for species that are under-represented in the galleries or opus?

Click to expand...

Where there are no pictures in a species Opus article it has a "Missing Images" category at the bottom. The current list can be found here: Category:Missing Images - BirdForum Opus.

Sometimes though, there are pictures on an article, but none in the Gallery, this is because a member may have uploaded them to the Opus Discussion area for us to add to the page. Other times they've allowed us to take them from their web page etc.

There's no real way to search the Gallery for pictures we haven't got. But if you want to know about a specific bird, it's easiest to go into the relevant Opus article, scroll to the bottom and click on the Gallery search link. We are in the process of changing the search parameters for every article, but with over 10k bird species it's a long job.

Also, the images have to have the common name and scientific name included in the Title, Description area or in the Tags for the search to find them.

Hope you can understand this ramble... I can expand on it if you want LOL

A photo winner for sure an amazing capture!

Beautiful bird and an excellent shot!

Excellent shot of one of my favourite sunbirds.