Elegant Sunbird

The elegant sunbird is a comparatively large Aethopyga, reaching about 12 cm. Males combine an iridescent blue-green crown, shoulder patch and upper tail-coverts with red ear-coverts and collar, an olive back, a narrow yellow bar across the lower back, and yellow throat and underparts. Females are yellowish olive above, with a scaled-looking crown and yellow below. Its scientific name honours Maarten Dirk van Renesse van Duivenbode, a nineteenth-century natural-history trader on Ternate (Wikipedia general account).

This resident is restricted to Sangihe Island north of Sulawesi. It feeds in the subcanopy on nectar and invertebrates, using primary forest for feeding and nesting but also entering forest edge, bamboo, mixed plantations, scrub and gardens where large trees or tree ferns remain. Records span roughly 75–1,000 m, and field accounts particularly associate it with forest and older plantations around Mount Sahendaruman in southern Sangihe. The sources opened gave no verified nest, clutch or incubation details (BirdLife DataZone habitat account; Oriental Bird Club field summary).