Honeybird

During a bird club walk this morning in the Buffelsdrift area, NE of Pretoria, we came across a group of bird ringers from our club. To hand when we arrived was this Brown-backed Honeybird (Prodotiscus regulus), a very small - approx. 13cm - bird with a thin bill, white outer tail feathers, mostly grey, paler below with white throat & belly.

In South Africa, it is an uncommon local resident, of woodland, exotic plantations, thornveld & coastal forest, but absent from most of the highveld & the dry west.