Black-throated Sunbird

Black-throated Sunbird Aethopyga saturata was recorded seventeen times on the tour, the majority of sightings being in the Doi Inthanon National Park. It is also known as Hodgson’s Sunbird and Black-breasted Sunbird. The adult male of this species is a beautiful bird which showed well for this photograph. Lying on the ground with my camera pointing upwards into a flowering tree was a very good way to take photos of a number of species including this one which came into close range.

It is a widespread species found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam. There are ten subspecies which in theory can be told on the basis of range and / or markings. The belly of this bird is white but some of the subspecies have yellow, greyish and even darker underparts. The two subspecies with ranges in north or north-west Thailand are A. s. petersi and A. s. galenae.

Black-throated Sunbird feeds in bushes and lower branches of open forest, at the edges of dense forest and in secondary growth. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. It is mostly resident and known to make some seasonal altitudinal movements in higher parts of its range. It is not globally threatened and is fairly common to common in India, Nepal and Bhutan; uncommon in Thailand; common to uncommon in Malay Peninsula.

References: HBW Alive; Wikipedia; Grimmett, R., Inskipp, C. and Inskipp, T. (1998) Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, page 805, Christopher Helm (Publishers) Ltd.