What Spiderhunter is this?

Whilst visiting Khao Sok National Park in southern Thailand last year, we found a Spiderhunter which exceeded my rather humble abilities to identify Asian birds. It was my first trip to southeast Asia and so you would think I would have hired a guide to show me around, but guides require planing ahead of time and that was not on the programme for that holiday (we basically just followed our noses, which was great and turned out to be a whole lot of fun).

A paler belly, lightly streaked down to the legs, and relatively unmarked face suggest Grey-breasted Spiderhunter Arachnothera affinis. Digiscoped with a Swarovski STM80HD, TLS800 and Canon 5D mark II (c) Dale Forbes

I saw this Spiderhunter species often in and around Khao Sok in the days we were there, and it quickly became a rather familiar bird, but despite having seen it scores of times, and having taken hundreds of photos, I am still not completely happy with what it is. The paler belly (at least compared to the mantle) and the neat, fine streaking through the throat and all the way down to the legs; and the relatively unmarked face suggested Grey-breasted Spiderhunter (Arachnothera affinis), but the only field guide I had with at the time (Craig Robson’s Birds of Thailand) showed the Grey-breasted Spiderhunter as being considerably more, well, grey. The birds I was seeing were green bellied (albeit paler than above), with many of them having almost a yellow tinge to them – approaching that of the Long-billed Spiderhunter (Arachnothera robusta).

peeky boo

some fine head streaking

That bill is considerably longer than that in the image of the Grey-breasted Spiderhunter in Robson's Birds of Thailand. (he/she/it was poking their tongue out in fun at me). Digiscoped with a Swarovski STM80HD, TLS800 and Canon 5D mark II (c) Dale Forbes

One of the other things that concerned me was that the bill of the Spiderhunters I was seeing was comparable to those of the Little Spiderhunters (Arachnothera longirostra) in the area, and appeared to be a good deal longer (1.5 head lengths) than the relatively short bill of the Grey-breasted Spiderhunters in Robson’s (excellent) guide (1 head length), and intermediate between that image and that of the Long-billed Spiderhunter (2 head lengths; unlikely to occur in the area).

Showing off his/her beautifully recurved bill

an unexpected photo of the Spiderhunter flapping for stability and splaying the tail feathers to show off the black and white markings.

fairly sure it is not a peacock

So my question is, is this just a Grey-breasted Spiderhunter with a more colourful plumage than “normal” (and is this regular? i.e. for youngsters, or regional etc.) and a longer bill than depicted (regional variation?)?

Little Spiderhunter Arachnothera longirostra hanging out at the same banana flower. Digiscoped with a Swarovski STM80HD, TLS800 and Canon 5D mark II (c) Dale Forbes

Thank you for your comments and happy birding!

Dale Forbes

here’s a video I made at the same time, with some footage of the Spiderhunters: