Bananaquit (Coereba flaveola)

A small bird that’s placed in the tanager family, the Bananaquit has a thin, down curved bill that helps it drink nectar from flowers and feeders, thus becoming a pollinator. It has a yellow belly and chest with dark gray upperparts, which suggests a flycatcher, but unlike that family, this bird’s diet is not concentrated on insects. It can’t hover like a hummingbird, so it is limited to extracting nectar from flowers where there is a perch available to support its weight. This small bird has a down-curved bill, which helps to drink nectar from flowers in rather hummingbird-like fashion, without the hovering of course.