Abstract
What bird flies like a finch, looks
and eats like a hummingbird, and sings
like a canary? The sunbird!
Sunbirds occur in Asia and Africa
and fill the same ecological niche as
the hummingbird does in the
American continents. There are 115
varieties of sunbirds, but very few have
been kept in captivity. In recent years,
several species have been imported into
the United States and are now being
successfully kept and occasionally
bred in captivity.
My first experience with sunbirds
began about four years ago when a
friend of mine had purchased a pair of
Buff Throated Sunbirds (Nectarinia
adelberti) from an importer and
wanted me to pick up the birds at the
quarantine station, keep them for a
few days and then forward them to
him in San Francisco. I had never seen
a sunbird before (in fact, had never
heard of them) and the idea of keeping
a "hummingbird" alive for any
length of time scared me to death. I
spent a few frantic hours reading
everything I could find on sunbirds.
This reading material consisted of one
small paragraph on sunbirds and
several very old articles on hummingbirds.
When I received the birds they were
in terrible feather, having all their
feathers stuck together from being in
small cages without bathing facilities.
Both the male and female had
reasonable weight on them, but were
very stressed from being in such poor
feather condition.