Thick-billed Spiderhunter

Thick-billed Spiderhunter Arachnothera crassirostris  is a scarce resident of lowland and hill forests of Borneo, occurring up to 1,200 meters above sea level.

It is about the size of the Little Spiderhunter Arachnothera longirostra and might be confused with one, but the grey/whitish throat of the Little Spiderhunter are obvious field identification feature, even with a bird in flight, where the thickness of the bill is not that apparent.

However, it might be confused with  Long-billed Spiderhunter Arachnothera robusta from afar, which also has olive green back and greenish yellow underparts. The differences are, however, easy to spot as Long-billed has streaky upper breast and an obvious thinner and longer bill, and it is a much larger bird. Thick-billed has yellowish broken eye-ring, which might not be easy to see in the field.

This bird is photographed in Tawau, my number 325 photographed wild birds of Borneo, the absent of orange pectoral tufts shows this is a female bird.

Now I still need the rare endemic Whitehead's Spiderhunter Arachnothera juliae in order to complete my photodocument of the spiderhunters of Sabah.

Happy birding.


Photodocument of Wild Birds of Borneo

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