What Bird

Is That ?

When Trans Australia Air lines took over the internal air services in Papua-New Guinea that were formerly run by Qantas, they gave them a name—Sunbird Ser vices—and painted the con troversial bird itself on the tail assembly of its DCS air craft.

The TAA Sunbird has a dark bib, a yellow vest and undercarriage and looks a bit like a fat, coloured sparrow.

No sooner had the new in signia been painted on the planes than a lot of local ex perts whose total time in the Territory added up to thousands of years, said they had never heard or seen a Sunbird and didn’t believe there was such a thing.

If there isn’t, there should be—according to Neville W.

Cayley’s book, “What Bird is That?” The yellow-breasted Sunbird is distributed over north-e astern Queensland, Celebes, New Guinea, Ad miralty Islands and the Solomons. Anyway, that’s what Mr. Cayley says and he goes on: “Usually in pairs, flitter ing about the flowering trees and shrubs seeking insects and nectar ... it has the true humming bird habit of hover ing near flowers.”

The female is all bright yellow underneath, but the male has a bright blue bib in addition. As these birds are apparently no more than six inches from beak to tail, and as all birds are difficult to see in the tall, rain forest of the Territory , it isn’t all that surprising that few people know them.