Profile
In flight
Songbirds
Purple Sunbird
Cinnyris asiaticus
- rare
- 42 km/h
- Least Concern
Looks jet-black in shade, then turns full iridescent purple in sunlight. Sings at dusk when other birds have given up.
- Population
- Global population size not quantified; described by BirdLife/IUCN as common throughout most of its range (rare/local in Bhutan), with a stable population trend
- Habitat
- Subtropical/tropical moist and dry forest edge, scrubland, rural gardens, arable land, and wetland margins, including dense urban areas; sea level up to about 2,400 m
- Fun fact
- Male Purple Sunbirds are important pollinators — using their short down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues to probe blossoms (including acacia and mistletoe) for nectar while incidentally transferring pollen — and they build distinctive pouch-shaped nests from cobwebs, vegetation, and bark, sometimes repurposing colonial spiders' webs.
- Range
- West/South/Southeast Asia: Arabian Peninsula (Oman, UAE) and Iran through Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, into Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand) and southern China; extent of occurrence ~12,100,000 km², largely resident/non-migratory
- Diet
- Primarily flower nectar, supplemented with small insects and spiders (especially when feeding young); also takes small berries and cultivated fruit such as grapes, sometimes via nectar-robbing (slitting flower bases)
- Size
- 0.1 m
- Wingspan
- 0.16 m
- Lifespan
- 22 years
