I would like to talk about this elusive, shy creature commonly known as Olive backed Sunbird. Here I would like to mention about what can you do to attract this nectar drinking birds in your garden. Olive backed Sunbird also known as Yellow Bellied Sunbird are commonly found around the Southeast Asia region spread across all over even found in Australia.
These are considered as highland birds very similar like hummingbirds but these particular Asian ones do not flatter their wings so much, however just like the hummingbirds they do tend to have a colorful features that surely creates that magical moment in your garden. I must say that these birds are elusive and too quick even to be captured in camera hence the lower quality recording as these fly away immediately in the slightest movement.
However these birds are not impossible to be enjoyed in your garden space, these are some of the tips that I would like to share to you based on my experience over the years on how to attract these birds in your garden. Do take note that these birds love to make their nests and always look for nest material, if possible tie a ball of cotton fiber around your garden area as they will use this material to build their nest.
Based on my constant observation, I found that the females are the one that collects the nest material while the male actually watch over the surrounding and protecting her giving her warning signal at any slightest danger that is appears in this situation. On a normal day, the female collect a nest material at least in a duration of 10 to 15 minutes based on where the nest is actually been built, in this particular thing that I've noticed is that their time cycle is appears to be a little bit lesser because they have note that my presence is in a place of their danger hence the delay was taking place.
Other than having cotton fibers around your garden you can also cultivate this particular plant known as firecracker plant, they seems to love the nectar that has been produced from these flowers and I find that this particular plant seems to be a strong magnet for these sunbirds. Do note that these birds do not like to come to ground level hence they will always like to hover or be in a position where it is slightly above ground. I believe this is one of the instincts that they will actually have when facing predators.
There are many tropical nectar bearing flowers and this particular one is what I found best and actually works in my garden. Another observation that I've noticed is that there will always be an alpha male that is actually taking care of a region, they seem to be very territorial hence I've always noticed that they'll make a very loud call in a way to identify that this is actually their region and what happened here is that another factor of either these particular birds are actually drinking the nectar towards the afternoon and they are very quiet, so this is supposed to be some kind of intruders that are sort of like robbing the territorial ground. so in a way that I've noticed that sunbirds do visit the garden and when they do they make a lot of noise and it always happen early in the morning somewhere around 8 00 a.m. in the morning.
I believe there is also a mating ground where they also attract the female birds. These are some of the nectar producing plants that attracts the sunbirds. This particular one is commonly known as firecracker plant. I must say that I find this particular one very hardy and easy to care for it appears to be very much like a shrub bushy plant which may require heavy pruning time to time together with also heavy feeding as to encourage them to produce a lot of blooms. However this particular plant do require a good sunlight for it to produce flowers.
This particular nectar producing plant is commonly known as little pink bird plant, seems to attract the sunbirds too. however this plant is very much behaves like a succulent plants hence requires a lot of sunlight and do watch out that it doesn't get too much water on it as it can easily succumb to root rot. However this too falls into the category of hardy plants, once this particular plant has established itself in your garden is nothing much to be worried about except for occasional feeding and pruning.
Another easy and hardy plant that I would like to recommend, are these ginger types known as Costus. This particular one produce small buds of flower like from the main crown where the sunbirds collect the nectar from them on every morning, similarly there are also some of the best nectar producing flowers like Heliconias which also spans out to be more fancy looking similar like Lobster Claw and even Bird of Paradise. These are some of the flowers that attracts the sunbirds this is not only particularly exhausted to this particular one, whereas there's so many other nectar producing flowers which the sunbirds do tend to visit.
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