Legge's flowerpecker
| Legge's flowerpecker | |
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| D. vincens male and female above compared with Dicaeum melanoxanthum below | |
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| Species: | D. vincens
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| Binomial name | |
| Dicaeum vincens (Sclater, 1872)
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The 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.[2]
The 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
In Sri Lanka, this bird is known as Lanka Pilachcha in Sinhala Language.This bird appears in a one rupee Sri Lankan postal stamp.[3]
References
- ^ Template:IUCN
- ^ Beolens, Bo & Michael Watkins (2003) Whose Bird?: Men and women commemorated in the common names of birds, Christopher Helm, London.
- ^ http://www.birdtheme.org/country/srilanka.html
- Birds of India by Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp, ISBN 0-691-04910-6
External links
- Flowerpecker videos on the Internet Bird Collection
