Anthobaphes violacea
Silhouette: PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10%
The orange-breasted sunbird (Anthobaphes violacea) is a species of small, predominantly nectar-feeding bird that is endemic to the fynbos shrubland biome of southwestern South Africa. It is the only member of the genus Anthobaphes, in the family Nectariniidae (the sunbirds and spiderhunters), though it is sometimes placed in the genus Nectarinia. The birds are sexually dimorphic, with females being olive green while the males are orange to yellow on the underside with bright green, blue and purple on the head and neck.
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the orange-breasted sunbird in his Ornithologie, based on a specimen collected from the Cape of Good Hope. He used the French name Le petit grimpereau a longue queue du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Certhia Longicauda Minor Capitis Bonae Spei. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | De Hoop Nature Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an Orange-breasted Sunbird sighting in Cape Town on a given day, based on 87 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 129th most-seen of the 196 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report an Orange-breasted Sunbird in Cape Town on a given day, against under 5% in February to December, the lowest months. That is one of Cape Town's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain against 140 mm in June.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Orange-breasted Sunbird sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Cape Town, in our data
Cape Town is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Orange-breasted Sunbird sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Nectariniidae
The closest relatives of the Orange-breasted Sunbird that you can see in Cape Town (family Nectariniidae, Sunbirds and Spiderhunters) are Southern Double-collared Sunbird (about 50%), Amethyst Sunbird (about 10%) and Malachite Sunbird (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Orange-breasted Sunbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Cape Town (87 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
