Southern double-collared sunbird
Cinnyris chalybeus
Bird
The southern double-collared sunbird is a small nectar-feeding bird endemic to southern Africa. The male is glossy metallic green with a brilliant red breast band separated from the green upper breast by a narrow metallic-blue band, and shows yellow shoulder tufts when breeding. Using a short, down-curved bill, it is a key pollinator of tubular flowers - ericas, aloes, leucospermums, and Leonotis among them - feeding mainly on nectar but also taking insects, especially when raising chicks. It adapts readily to suburban gardens planted with indigenous flowering species and is a common, ecologically important garden visitor across the Cape.
Conservation
Assessed Least Concern by the IUCN; populations are stable and the species has adapted successfully to suburban gardens and modified habitats throughout its range.
Plants in the catalog
Nectar plants · 10
Nerine flowers in the southern African autumn, and this resident sunbird is a documented nectar feeder on Cape bulbs of exactly this flower shape.
Cinnyris chalybeus is a principal bird pollinator of Cape aloes, and A. ferox flowers through winter when little else offers nectar at that volume.
Probes the nodding tubes for nectar and carries pollen between plants across the Western Cape range of this bulb.
The long curved tubes of Cape honeysuckle are a classic sunbird flower, and this is the sunbird most likely to be working them through the Western and Eastern Cape.
This record already named the Lesser Double-collared Sunbird as its visitor, which is this bird under its older English name (Cinnyris chalybeus). It probes the pendent tubes of the winter flower spike for nectar.
Leonotis leonurus is a named food plant; the long tubular orange flowers fit the sunbird's pollination syndrome.
Documented as a visitor and pollinator of Erica verticillata in Cape fynbos-restoration records.
Range
Endemic to southern Africa; core range centred on South Africa's Western Cape, extending east through the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and north to Mpumalanga and Limpopo, with the far south of Namibia at the range margin. Occurs across fynbos, Karoo shrubland, coastal scrub, Afromontane forest, and suburban gardens.
Sources & citations
Cite this page
Use this citation for the Plotwright wildlife record. Use the source cards below to explore the references that informed its taxonomy, range, conservation, host plants, foraging, and habitat.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Southern double-collared sunbird (Cinnyris chalybeus). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/southern-double-collared-sunbird
Sources used for this record
This record is compiled from the sources below.
Southern double-collared sunbird - Wikipedia
Identification, southern-African range, IUCN Least Concern status, nectar-feeding biology, and named food plants.
Cinnyris chalybeus - GBIF
Accepted taxonomy and southern-African occurrence records.