Male Orange breasted Sunbird

Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden is a Word Heritage site and yet another jewel in Cape Town' crown. I went there yesterday afternoon with the specific intention of photographing Sunbirds.  The garden, with the numerous flowering trees and shrubs is home to several species and are easy to find. They are  a real exotic bird, particularly males of each species. They have metallic iridescent plumage, long sharp bills and extending tongues which they use to extract and then drink nectar from blooms. I am very attracted to them and have seen and photographed them in Australia, Israel, Sri Lanka, Gambia and of course here in Cape Town.
It was a big success, we started the visit with lunch in the garden restaurant and even as we sat drinking our coffee a Sunbird flew in to the herbaceous border. It's focus was a Red Hot Poker flower, later on as the sun dipped down behind Table Mountain there was a constant stream of Double Bar Sunbirds flying to drink from the flowers in a border. The light was perfect and I not only got a big thrill out of watching them, I also took some quite special photographs.
Earlier on we had sat on a garden bench overlooking other flowering shrubs and I had been lucky to be really close to an Orange Breasted Sunbird that was in eclipse plumage. That's to say, a bird that was either a youngster moulting in to iridescent adult plumage, or an adult moulting out of its finery in to its wintering duller garb.

Male Southern Double-barred Sunbird

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Female  Southern Double barred Sunbird