White-throated Flowerpecker (Dicaeum vincens)

Legge's Flowerpecker or White-throated Flowerpecker (Dicaeum vincens) is a small passerine bird. It is an endemic resident breeder in Sri Lanka. It is named after the Australian ornithologist William Vincent Legge.

About the size of the Purple-rumed Sunbird, which it somewhat resembles at a distance; the male is at once distinguished, however, by its pure-white throat and dark bluish-grey back, while both sexes have the beak short and stout-very different from the Sunbird's. 

Legge's Flowerpecker is a common resident breeding bird of forests and other well-wooded habitats including gardens. Two eggs are laid in a purse-like nest suspended from a tree.

This is a very small, stout flowerpecker, 10 cm in length, with a short tail, short thick curved bill and tubular tongue. The latter features reflect the importance of nectar in its diet, although berries, spiders and insects are also taken.

The male Legge's Flowerpecker has blue-black upperparts, a white throat and upper breast, and yellow lower breast and belly. The female is duller, with olive-brown upperparts.
 

It lives either solitary, in pairs, or in little family parties, and is not easy to meet with because it keeps mainly to the tops of tall trees, either in forests or on its outskirts. However, it is very fond of the nectar of the red cotton tree and when these trees are in flower-about Christmas time in its range-it may be found fairly easily. 

The breeding season is from January to August. The nest is often built in a Hora tree. It is a hanging pocket of felted plant down, with the entrance at the top, just below the supporting twig. The two eggs are dull white, irregularly spotted with purplish red. They measure about   16×12 mm.

This scarce little bird is found only in the rain forests of the south-western parts ofthe wet zone, including the neighbouring hills up to 3,000 feet.