Addo Elephant National Park boats with over 450 different bird species making it not just great for elephant and game watching, but also bird watching. I’m not always too bothered with trying to photograph birds with my superzoom as it isn’t really fast enough to take proper pictures of them, but on my last visit I had a borrowed SLR with a long lens and snapped away at anything that moved. One of those was this Malachite Sunbird.
The adult male is metallic green when breeding, with blackish-green wings. In non-breeding plumage, the male’s upperparts are brown apart from the green wings and tail, the latter retaining the elongated feathers. The female has brown upperparts and dull yellow underparts with some indistinct streaking on the breast. The Malachite Sunbird is found in South Africa in hilly fynbos (including protea stands as well as areas with aloes) and cool montane and coastal scrub, up to 2,800m altitude.