Female Sunbird ID ? Yunnan / Bai Hua Ling (China) (1 Viewer)

Taken in afew location in Yunnnan
I was guessing 2 type of female sunbird .....Black-Throated SB
and Mrs Gould's SB but not which was the right guess.

Are these 5 different individuals?

Yes different location in Yunnan

These female Himalayan Sunbirds are wickedly difficult - or is it just me? Obviously the best way to identify them is to see them together with the male of the species! Field guide illustrations aren't much use and I suspect that quite a few online images are misidentified.

In theory four species could occur here - Green-tailed, Black-throated, Mrs Gould's and Fire-tailed. I think we can rule out the last as the female normally shows reddish-brown tones on the tail.

As far as I can see, the characteristics of the female of each species are:

Green-tailed - long bill, longer, graduated green tail (concolorous with upperparts) and with white tips, coppery tones on flight feathers, not very yellow on underparts.

Black-throated - very plain grey head, same coppery tones on flight feathers as Green-tailed but less marked, tail shorter and tends to be dark on uppertail (sometimes with protruding central tail feather?), less contrasting pattern on undertail than Mrs Gould's, no real yellow tones on underparts.

Mrs Gould's - shorter bill, plain grey head, pale throat(?), yellow patch on lower back (but hard to see), coppery tones on flight feathers, prominent white tips on undertail (strongly variegated pattern), yellow underparts, brownish tones on uppertail(?), sometimes with a slight fork(?).

Coming to your images, with a low degree of confidence:

1. looks a bit short-billed for Black-throated, with a green head and yellowish underparts - perhaps Mrs Gould's
2. Black-throated? - not yellow enough on the underparts for Mrs Gould's, blackish uppertail, central tail feathers protrude slightly
3. could be Black-throated but green uppertail, tail slightly forked - on the other hand, looks too long-billed for Mrs Gould's and no sign of yellow tones underneath
4. this should be Mrs Gould's - short bill, yellow underparts, strongly variegated undertail pattern, pink feet
5. looks long-billed and only slightly yellow on underparts - Green-tailed?

I may well be wrong on some or all of these and would welcome further input.

Thanks