Scientific name:
Leiothrix lutea

Natural spread:
China

high lain mountain-forests and jungles of all the type of the northwest-like Himalaya-Region until South-China is the natural habitat of the sun-bird; in Hawaii, it was naturalized. Everywhere the pretty bird attracts attention through its agreeable and soft chant, that is also the cause, that it became a quite frequent cage-bird in Europe and America. it appears on the market under the name "Chinese nightingale" and is assigned wrongly to a wrong group with it; because it is among the Timalien.

Shape In contrast to the olive upper side and the darker tail of the male, the light-yellow and orange Handschwingen as well as this get along orange with the yellow Kehlfleck brownish breast. Otherwise, the underside of the 15 cm of big bird is gelblicholiv. The female is colored similar, however much less shining.

Way of life From the dense undergrowth, the sun-birds climb until into the highest treetops in order to look for insects. Outside the incubation, they are very sociable and often perform vociferously in smaller associations. The melodic chant is to be heard only about individual males in the incubation. Then, they sit with ruffled feathers and fluttering wings on a branch and delimit its precinct. If a female with weak reputations responds, they are stimulated again to recite the whole chant-repertoire once again.

The nests are bowl-shaped and are built at quite different places in the Gezweig, frequently in ground-proximity. Foliage and moss or finer fibers serve as Niststoffe for the end-upholstery. Usually, a nest consists of 3 - 4 eggs, that become in 12 days of erbrütet; second yearly-brood connects to it at least one.