Cinnyris lotenius
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
Loten's sunbird (Cinnyris lotenius), also known as the long-billed sunbird or maroon-breasted sunbird, is a sunbird endemic to peninsular India and Sri Lanka. Named after Joan Gideon Loten, who was the Dutch governor of colonial Ceylon, it is very similar to the purple sunbird that is found in the same areas and also tends to hover at flowers for nectar, but can be distinguished by the longer bill, the maroon band on the breast and brownish wings. Like other sunbirds, it is also insectivorous and builds characteristic hanging nests.
Loten's sunbirds are small, only 12–13 cm long. The long bill separates this from the syntopic purple sunbird. The wings are browner and the maroon breast band is visible on the male under good lighting conditions. The males have pectoral tufts of yellow mixed with crimson that are used in displays. The adult male is mainly glossy purple with a grey-brown belly. The female has yellow-grey upperparts and yellowish underparts, but lacks the purple's faint supercilium. The call is distinctive buzzy zwick zwick and they are also very active often bobbing their head while foraging. They long down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Minneriya National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 2 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Udawalawe National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 4 | Yala National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 5 | Wilpattu National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 6 | Mudumalai National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Horton Plains National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 8 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Sinharaja Forest Reserve | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 10 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 11 | Sundarbans National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Eravikulam National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 2 | Kollam | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Kozhikode | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Kochi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Puducherry | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Thrissur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Ponnani | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Colachel | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Thiruvananthapuram | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Bhubaneshwar | 🇮🇳 India |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Long-billed Sunbird sighting in Kozhikode on a given day, based on 422 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 30th most-seen of the 229 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January–March and November
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Long-billed Sunbird in Kozhikode on a given day, against under 5% in July, the lowest month. Those are among Kozhikode's driest months, with about 45 mm of rain a month against 390 mm in June.
Between 3 and 6 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Long-billed Sunbird sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
3rd of 21
Of the 21 cities where we can rate Long-billed Sunbird sightings, Kozhikode ranks 3rd at about 20%. The best odds are in Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] (Sri Lanka, about 30%) and Kollam (India, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Long-billed Sunbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Kozhikode (422 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.
