Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Hummingbirds In Bali?

I enjoy watching hummingbirds in my garden in Niagara-on-the-Lake and had always believed that the 340 species could only be found in the Americas so I was surprised to see birds that looked like large hummingbirds in Bali, the Indonesian island where I'm vacationing. The Balinese refer to the birds as "cit jlanting" - "cit" referring to its "cit cit cit" calls and "jlanting" referring to the fact that this bird is always hanging on the flower.



It is more likely that the bird I saw is actually a sunbird like the one in the video above. Sunbirds are colourful nectar eaters that are larger than hummingbirds. They are passerines or perching songbirds. Mystery solved.


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