Alternative name: Uluguru Sunbird
- Anthreptes neglectus
Identification
12 cm. A rather small sunbird, both sexes with violet backs.
Male
- Reddish-violet forehead, crown, mantle, back and scapulars
- Dull black nape
- Metallic blue-green rump
- Metallic violet uppertail-coverts
- Dark brown upperwing with yellowish edges
- Iridescent green shoulder
- Metallic violet uppertail, black undertail
- Metallic reddish-violet chin and upper throat
- Whitish lower throat, underparts and underwing
- Yellow or orange pectoral tufts
- Buff wash on belly, flanks and undertail-coverts
- Black bill
Female
- Similar to male
- Blackish-brown central part of forehead
- White chin and throat
- Much yellow on belly, undertail-coverts and thighs
- Buffy-grey rest of underparts with diffuse darker streaking and olive streaks at side of belly
Juveniles have a distinctive white supercilium, a dull brown crown, mantle and wing-coverts and sometimes a metallic violet wash.
Similar species
Similar to Eastern Violet-backed Sunbird and Western Violet-backed Sunbird but has broader yellow-green edges to remiges and upperwing-coverts and dark brown hindcollar. Females have dimmer buff-grey (instead of white) underparts.
Distribution
Southeast Kenya, Tanzania and northern Mozambique.
Locally common in eastern Usambaras and Uluguru Mountains, scarce in rest of fragmented range.
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species.
Forms a superspecies with Western Violet-backed Sunbird, Eastern Violet-backed Sunbird and Violet-tailed Sunbird.
Habitat
Found in montane and submontane forest, also in gallery forest, thickets and tea plantations close to forest. Furthermore in moist scrubland, wooded country and coastal forest.
Occurs from sea-level up to 1800 m.
Behaviour
Diet
Not well known. Seen to visit grevillea and mistletoes, also takes insects.
Usually forages in groups of up to six birds.
Breeding
Breeding recorded in various months. A territorial species. The nest is an untidy construction with a dangling "beard". It's made of grass, lichens and moss and is suspended 8 m up from a tree.
Movements
Presumably a resident species.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2016. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2016, with updates to August 2016. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved November 2016)
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Uluguru Violet-backed Sunbird. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 6 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Uluguru_Violet-backed_Sunbird
