Nilgiri Flowerpecker

The Nilgiri flowerpecker is a tiny bird of the flowerpecker family, about 9 cm long, with no marked difference between males and females. It forages within the canopy of forests and is found in the hill forests of the Western Ghats and Nilgiri hills of southern India. It is pale brown on the upperside and whitish below, very olive above, with a finer, slightly curved black bill and a bright patch of pale yellow in the centre of the belly. The population in the Andaman Islands, virescens, is considered a separate species, the Andaman flowerpecker, in the newer treatment (Wikipedia, general species account).

It was formerly a subspecies of what used to be termed the plain flowerpecker, and like others of the group feeds predominantly on nectar and fruit. It is non-migratory and a common resident breeder of woodland edges, cultivation and isolated stands of trees, often in hilly country, laying two or three eggs in a purse-like nest suspended from a tree or bush. SoIB 2023 treats it as a Western Ghats endemic and rates it a Low conservation priority, with a Moderate range of about 125,000 km² and a stable current trend (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).