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Sunbirds ID? Dalat, Vietnam, January 2025 (1 Viewer)

WolfgangK

Member
Germany
I often find it more difficult to identify the birds I see than to photograph them. Today I found these Sunbirds in the Ta Nung Valley / Dalat, Vietnam, among other birds and I'm not 100% sure. My guess is that it could be one of the following species:
  1. Black-throated Sunbird
  1. Mrs. Gould's Sunbird
  1. Green-tailed Sunbird
Thank you very much in advance for any corrections (or confirmations)!
 

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1. The local subspecies johnsii of Black-throated - it has a lovely crimson breast.
2. Agree with male Mrs Gould's. Strangely, birds in the Dalat plateau don't have a scarlet breast, but those on the Kon Tum plateau do.
3. I'm not sure Green-tailed occurs there, and it's rather yellow on the belly - why not female Mrs Gould's?
 
Those are some beautifully captured sunbirds. I'm from Vietnam and yet I have not been to Ta Nung valley nor seen any of these colorful variants. Do you have a Flickr/500px page where I can follow? Thanks.
 
1. The local subspecies johnsii of Black-throated - it has a lovely crimson breast.
2. Agree with male Mrs Gould's. Strangely, birds in the Dalat plateau don't have a scarlet breast, but those on the Kon Tum plateau do.
3. I'm not sure Green-tailed occurs there, and it's rather yellow on the belly - why not female Mrs Gould's?
Thank you for the partial confirmation. Perhaps you are right about the third picture. I'm a bit out of my depth, to me female Green-tailed Sunbird and female Mrs Gould's Sunbird look quite similar. Here's another perspective of this sighting ...
 

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Those are some beautifully captured sunbirds. I'm from Vietnam and yet I have not been to Ta Nung valley nor seen any of these colorful variants. Do you have a Flickr/500px page where I can follow? Thanks.
Thank you very much for your kind feedback. Unfortunately, I'm not active on the platform mentioned, I don't even know it. I only use the usual social media channels such as Facebook (this is my page, for example).
 

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