The first photo was made by Joan Bakker and the second one by
J.S. Dunning, both in Suriname. The photo just above this text
shows a young Bananaquit, seen by Leo Olmtak in his garden in
Paramaribo in September 2009. The next photo was also made in
Paramaribo by Jan Hein Ribot, March 2006. The Bananaquit is a
very small bird (length 10 cm) that often visits gardens. It
lives high in trees and there you can hear its high sweet song, but my taperecorder
had difficulty recording it. If you imitate the sound it will
come close, to chase away the intruder.
The bird eats nectar from the flowers in gardens. It can (as some
hummingbirds) pierce the flowers of hibiscus plants from the
side, so 'stealing' the nectar without pollinating the plant. He
leaves behind a small hole in the red petals. Because of this and
because it will also, at some places, boldy pick some sugar from
a table, it is named 'suikerdiefje' (sugar thieve) in Dutch (and
comparable things in other languages).
Each small square indicates the observation of at least one
(group) of these birds, the medium ones at least 4 observations
on different days and the largest ones 10 or more. The color of
each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna
and red for rainforest.
The photos below were made by Ribot of a Barica Geel (yellow
belly) from Aruba. In Aruba the throat is black and white, in
Suriname it is only white. The last picture was made by Didier
Brunel on st. Maarten (Dutch Antilles), where it is called
yellowbreast and has a totally black throat.
| Distribution in Suriname (explanation) | |
| Coastal area |  |
| Savanna | |
| Forests | |
| Mountain forests | |
| Sipalawini savanna |  |
Names in
More pictures of birds from Suriname, part 7
*