Variable Sunbird

The Variable Sunbird is a small sunbird (10 cm), with a beak that is slightly shorter than its head, quite strong and regularly bending downward, and with a very noticeable sexual dimorphism.
The male, in nuptial plumage, is particularly colourful. What stands out at first glance is the stark contrast between its chest of a bright purple edged in black towards the bottom and its light coloured belly (white, yellow, or orange, depending on the subspecies). A purple colour is also present on its forehead and chin. The lores are black. Yellow and/or red tufts are visible on either side of the chest in certain circumstances, on the wrist of the wing. Viewed from behind, it displays upper parts (the back of its head, neck, mantle, back, rump, lesser and greater coverts) in a bright green or blue-green. The rest of the wing is dark brown and the greater coverts are bordered by blue-green. The greater tertials are brightly blue and the tail is black, nicely tinted with blue. The legs and beak are black; the iris is dark brown.
The female, smaller than the male, has a much more discreet and less glossy plumage. The upper parts are of a quite cold brown-grey, tinged with olive depending on the subspecies and the individual. The wings are of a middle brown colour and the tail, a blackish glossy blue, is bordered and finished with whitish. A pale yellowish eyebrow, hardly visible, outlines the dark eye. The lores are dark brown. The underside of the type subspecies is pale yellow, fading to whitish along the throat and lesser coverts.
Young ones resemble their mother, without the light areas on the tail. A bit later, a young male will be differentiated by its throat marked by a longitudinal dark band.
The 5 subspecies are mainly distinguished by the colour of the male's belly, which can range from white to orange, hence the English specific name Variable Sunbird.The albiventris subspecies, found in the Horn of Africa, is the least colourful of the 5. Yellow is absent from the plumage, in both the male and female. The belly is white and in the female, there is no olive hue on the back. The most colourful is the ssp igneiventris whose male has, as its name suggests, its upper belly the colour of fire and scarlet tufts on the pectoral.
In the south of the continent, one of the subspecies has two ecological groups of birds that are distinctly different. This is an illustration of a process of speciation that, in time, could lead to new taxa.