Hummingbird vs Sunbird in India
As mentioned in the earlier post I was able to capture the hummingbird or more accurately the purple sunbird in the camera.
Why I say Sunbird is that Hummingbirds are only naturally found in the Americas, what we have in India are Sunbirds. They seem to have developed independently and as their habitat and feeding habits are similar they look and behave very similar to each other. But scientifically there are no Hummingbirds found in India or Asia for that matter. I am totally amazed at the way nature works. Two continents separated by thousands of miles of oceans and yet two very similar birds develop there as part of natural selection and evolution. I have seen something similar in the succulents the Euphorbia that are succulents of the Old World – Africa & Eurasia have developed very similar to many cacti that are succulents in New World the Americas. Both the genera are not related at all but yet when you see many Euphorbia and Cacti living in the similar habitat you notice they look same and have developed same features like thorns in place of leaves, columnar or spherical shape etc.
But let us get back to our beautiful Purple Sunbird 🙂
The female purple sunbird was the first one I took some pictures and then the male followed her in the frame. One interesting thing I noticed was that whenever the male will go to the new flower the female will chase him away, and the poor male will simply go to another one, to be chased again from there. I guess the female of the species is more dangerous in this case also.
![]() Female Sunbird enjoying the nectar of flowers |
![]() The Male Sunbird with a beautiful bluish color |

The Purple Sunbird – Male
A few years later I also clicked Sunbirds in action in Gurgaon. Check that post here >>
Birds In Backyard
Hi, nice pic, which lens are you using?
Thanks Sumeeet, for bird pictures I use a basic 55-300 5.6 VR Nikon Lens