Purple-rumped Sunbird - BirdForum Opus

Male in breeding plumage
Photo © by Alok Tewari
Lodha Aurum Grande, Urban Residential Society Garden, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, 18 September 2024

Leptocoma zeylonica

Identification

Female
Photo © by Rakesh
Bangalore, India, 18 September 2005

10cm (4 in)

• Medium-length thin down-curved bill
• Brush-tipped tubular tongue
  

Adult male

• Maroon breast-band, sides of the head and back
• Purple throat and rump
• Yellow underparts flanked with white
• Green shoulder patch
  

Female and juvenile are duller

• Olive-green back
• Brown wings
• Yellow breast

Distribution

Juvenile – Female
Photo © by Dr JP Menon
Coimbatore, South India, 13 February 2021

Asia: India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
Southeast Asia: Indochina and Myanmar

Taxonomy

Several Sunbirds (including this one) of the genus Nectarinia have recently been moved into the genus Leptocoma.

Subspecies

Male
Photo © by Dr JP Menon
Coimbatore, South India, 7 November 2020

There are 2 subspecies^[1]:

• L. z. flaviventris:

• Peninsula India, Bangladesh, and western Burma

• L. z. zeylonica:

• Sri Lanka

An additional subspecies sola is generally considered invalid^[1].

Habitat

Scrub and cultivation.

Behaviour

Breeding

Two to three eggs are laid in a suspended nest in a tree.

Male, eclipse plumage
Photo © by vijay4birds
Tamilnadu, India, June 2016

Diet

Male showing his purple rump
Photo © by sudeepdatre
India, July 2004

Their diet consists of insects such as spiders and caterpillars, nectar, grapes and misletoe berries.

Vocalisation

Call: ptsiee ptsit, ptsiee ptsswit.
Both call and song are heard in the following recording :

Recording © by Alok Tewari
Lodha Aurum Grande, Urban Residential Society Garden, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, 17 September 2024 ... 5.17 pm.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Lepage D. (2021) [Avibase - https://avibase.ca/9A13D986]. Retrieved 8 June 2021
3. Cheke, R. and C. Mann (2020). Purple-rumped Sunbird (Leptocoma zeylonica), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.pursun3.01
4. The Website of Everything

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Purple-rumped Sunbird. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 28 April 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Purple-rumped_Sunbird

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