Dicaeum cruentatum

Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand

This week is special because it is my first flowerpecker - the Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker. The scarlet-backed is a small flowerpecker whose male has a bright red streak down its back from the crown to the tail. This is a bird of subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and sometimes found in garden throughout South and East Asia. 

But first about Flowerpeckers in general. They are a family, Dicaeidae, of passerine birds comprising of two genera - Dicaeum and Prionochilus - with 50 species in total. The family has sometimes been included as part of the sunbird family Nectariniidae. Incidentally, of all the birds I have written about till date, there is only one sunbird - the Mrs. Gould’s Sunbird and one Nectariniidae - the Streaked Spiderhunter. I suppose I will need to write about a few more but I digress. The berry pickers of the family Melanocharitidae and the painted berrypeckers of Paramythiidae were once lumped together as well. The family is distributed through tropical Southern Asia and Australasia from India east to the Philippines and south to Australia. They have a wide range and occupy diverse habitats from sea level to montane habitats. 

Flowerpeckers are stout birds, with short necks and legs. These are small birds ranging from the 10-cm, 5.7-gram pygmy flowerpecker to the 18-cm, 12-gram mottled flowerpecker. These have short tails, short thick curved bills and tubular tongues. The latter features reflect the importance of nectar in the diet of many species. They also have digestive systems that have evolved to deal efficiently with mistletoe berries. Often dull in colour, in several species the males have brightly patterned crimson or glossy-black plumage.

Nectar forms part of the diet along with berries, spiders & insects. Mistletoes of 21 species in 12 genera have been found to be part of the diet of flowerpeckers, and it is thought that all species have adaptations to eat these berries and dispose of them quickly. Flowerpeckers may occur in mixed-species feeding flocks with sunbirds and white-eyes, as well as other species of flowerpecker.

Kaeng Krachan National Park

Kaeng Krachan National Park is located in Phetchaburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan Provinces, about 60 km from Phetchaburi and 75 km from Hua Hin. It is bounded by the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve along Myanmar's border to the west and part of the Western Forest Complex that covers 18,730 km² across 19 protected sites between Myanmar and Thailand. There are two main rivers in the park; Phetchaburi and Pran Buri Rivers. Both rivers originate from the Tanaosri Mountain Range. In the north, Phetchaburi River flows into Kaeng Krachan Dam and flows further east all the way out to the Gulf of Thailand. Pran Buri River flows south to Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, into Pran Buri Reservoir and out to the Gulf of Thailand.

The highest elevation in the park is a peak along the Burmese border at around 1,500 meters. The park is popular for wildlife which doesn’t necessarily mean it is easy. The possibilities depend on the seasons and seasonal conditions for various types of animals. Mammals like leopards, clouded leopards, bears, stump-tailed macaques, sambhar, barking deer, elephants, dholes, golden jackal, gaur, serows, crab-eating mongoose and tapirs can be spotted in the park. There also used to be a significant tiger population in the park up until a decade ago, but only a few are left now.

Langurs, stump-tailed macaques, white-handed gibbons, sambar, mouse deer, porcupines, monitor lizards, civets and black giant squirrel are frequently seen. White-handed gibbons can be seen or heard nearly every day, often seen at the edge of the campsites.

Read more about the birds of the beautiful and dense Kaeng Krachan National Park.

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker

The scarlet-backed flowerpecker (Dicaeum cruentatum) is a species of passerine bird in the flowerpecker family Dicaeidae. Sexually dimorphic, the male has navy blue upperparts with a bright red streak down its back from its crown to its tail coverts, while the female and juvenile are predominantly olive green. It is found in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and occasionally gardens in a number of countries throughout South and East Asia.

Found through tropical Southern Asia and Australasia from India east to the Philippines and south to Australia. They are found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Usually thought to be common throughout most of its range particularly in Thailand, it is considered rare in Bhutan and Nepal. It is found up to 1000 m (3500 ft), in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, wooded areas and gardens. In the north of its range, it is found in southeastern China to Fujian (as the subspecies Dicaeum c. cruentatum). It has been recorded from both native and plantation forest in West Bengal in India.

The scarlet-backed flowerpecker is a small bird with a short tail measuring 9 cm and weighing 7 to 8 grams. It exhibits sexual dimorphism. The male has a navy blue face, wings and tail, with a broad bright red stripe from its crown to its upper tail coverts. The female is predominantly olive green with a black tail and scarlet upper tail coverts and rump. The female, while largely dull, can be distinguished from other flowerpeckers by her bright red rump that is often visible when hovering and foraging. The Juvenile lacks the red rump, but has a white throat and is a much darker brown above than the similar Plain Flowerpecker. Both sexes have creamy white underparts, black eyes and legs, and a dark grey arched bill.

In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the scarlet-backed flowerpecker in the second volume of his “A Natural History of Uncommon Birds”. He used the English name "The little Black, White, and Red Indian Creeper". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen that had been sent from Bengal to the silk-pattern designer and naturalist Joseph Dandridge in London. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the scarlet-backed flowerpecker with the treecreepers in the genus Certhia. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Certhia cruentata and cited Edwards' work. The scarlet-backed flowerpecker is now placed in the genus Dicaeum that was introduced by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1816. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek dikaion. Cuvier claimed that this was a word for a very small Indian bird mentioned by the Roman author Claudius Aelianus but the word probably referred instead to the scarab beetle Scarabaeus sacer. The specific epithet cruentata is from Latin cruentatus meaning "blood-stained".

Genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA of 70% of flowerpecker species showed the scarlet-backed and black-fronted flowerpecker (D. igniferum) - which is endemic to the Indonesian Lesser Sunda Islands - to be each other's closest relative; the males of both species have red plumage on their backs.

Six subspecies are recognised:

• D. c. cruentatum (Linnaeus, 1758) – east Himalayas and Bangladesh to south China, Indochina, Malay Peninsula and Myanmar - featured here.

• D. c. sumatranum Cabanis, 1877 – Sumatra

• D. c. niasense Meyer de Schauensee & Ripley, 1940 – island of Nias (off west Sumatra)

• D. c. batuense Richmond, 1912 – Batu and Mentawai Islands (off southwest Sumatra)

• D. c. simalurense Salomonsen, 1961 – island of Simeulue (off northwest Sumatra)

• D. c. nigrimentum Salvadori, 1874 – Borneo

The scarlet-backed is found up to 1000 m (3500 ft), in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, wooded areas and gardens. In the north of its range, it is found in southeastern China to Fujian (as the subspecies Dicaeum c. cruentatum). it is thought to be common throughout most of its range particularly in Thailand, but it is considered rare in Bhutan and Nepal.

With that said, let’s move onto the gallery of this pretty flowerpecker.

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