Teaching Treasures™

Purple Throated Sunbird Purple Throated Sunbird


The purple throated sunbirds live in Assam, Bangladesh, Burma, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi and in the Philippine Islands. They inhabit shrubby areas, swamps, second growth forests and also parks and gardens.

The males and females are about the same size, 10 cm or 4 inches long. The males are the most brightly coloured; the females are not as bright. Females have olive-green under parts with a yellow belly. Males are very colourful, they have purple throats, red bellies with green on their heads, black-grey wings with a bright blue band.

Their main food is nectar but they also eat small insects. Females make an oval nest using young roots with spider webs and plant fibres. The nest is about 6m from the ground. She will lay 2 eggs in the nest.

The Scientific name is Nectarinia Sperata.

Your task:

1. Obtain a library book that has good pictures of the purple throated sunbird. After you have studied one of the pictures try to draw it in one corner on a blank piece of paper. Leave enough room for a small write-up. Make some fact boxes about the purple throated sunbird. Alternatively you can try to locate this bird on a web site and obtain your facts from there or use the facts written above.

2. Locate where these birds live on an atlas, draw your own map and show on your map the birds general dispersion area.

purple throated sunbird


