Legge's Flowerpecker

Legge's Flowerpecker
Legge's Flowerpecker
D. vincens male and female above compared with Dicaeum melanoxanthum below
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Dicaeidae
Genus: Dicaeum
Species: D. vincens
Binomial name
Dicaeum vincens
(Sclater, 1872)

Legge's Flowerpecker or White-throated Flowerpecker (Dicaeum vincens) is a small passerine bird. It is an endemic resident breeder in Sri Lanka. It is named after the Australian ornithologist William Vincent Legge.[1]

Legge's Flowerpecker is a common resident breeding bird of forests and other well-wooded habitats including gardens. Two eggs are laid in a purse-like nest suspended from a tree.

This is a very small, stout flowerpecker, 10 cm in length, with a short tail, short thick curved bill and tubular tongue. The latter features reflect the importance of nectar in its diet, although berries, spiders and insects are also taken.

The male Legge's Flowerpecker has blue-black upperparts, a white throat and upper breast, and yellow lower breast and belly. The female is duller, with olive-brown upperparts.

In Culture

This bird appears in a one rupee Sri Lankan postal stamp.[2]

References

  1. ^ Beolens, Bo & Michael Watkins (2003) Whose Bird?: Men and women commemorated in the common names of birds, Christopher Helm, London.
  2. ^ http://www.birdtheme.org/country/srilanka.html
  • BirdLife International (2004). Dicaeum vincens. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map and a brief justification of why this species is near threatened
  • Birds of India by Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp, ISBN 0-691-04910-6

External links


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