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Ancestor: Blue Sparrow

Size: Smallest: 9 cm beak tip to tail tip (16 cm wingspan), Largest: 14 cm beak tip to tail tip (27 cm  wingspan)

Dietary Needs: They have become completely reliant on invertebrates at all ages of life, particularly flying insects such as bees, butterflies and beetles. They also supplement their high energy needs with fruit in season. They are capable of feeding in mid-air when it's convenient or necessary to do so, though prefer to take bundles of catches to a nest or safe place to eat at rest.

Chicks are fed much softer, larval and wormlike invertebrates, as well as occasional land-venturing snails picked from the riverside and smashed open on a rock. The parents usually consume the more difficult to digest prey and fruit to fuel themselves when they are feeding chicks.

Life Cycle: Some species nest in both the Northern and Southern migration destinations, effectively having two breeding seasons in a year. Some species however have a rest season, either breeding entirely in the South or the North of their migratory range.

As well as the presence of flowers and thus bees to dictate seasonal staying (and usually breeding) locations, these birds need the nesting habitat of dense shrubs or dense foliage trees. Steppe and open, sparse desert is unsuitable because of a lack of these trees. They also build a nest within these shrubs and trees out of grass and very thin support twigs, which makes a very neat bowl-shaped nest. Their narrow, tweezer-like beak is not only good for catching bees, it also helps them do a better job at weaving the grass between other grass blades and twigs to tighten it and make a neater bowl shape, or to bind the nest to the branches the nest is resting on. Nests are robust enough that they can be used multiple times and can be repaired for further continued use.

Nest building is a commitment one bird can't do alone, it takes a pair at least (who are monogamous, strongly bond-forming pairs), sometimes a small family to build and maintain the nest. Because of the learning curve required, young adults may assist their parents in maintaining the nest or raising their younger siblings. There is a mutual benefit to this. The parents are less overworked and the young bird learns essential life skills they would not get any practice with anywhere else. If they leave the nest immediately they're thrust into the real world and cannot afford to fail, so it helps to have some education to fall back on. The ability to build a nest is thus not completely hard-wired. They have an in-built want to nest build, but little in-built know-how.

There is a small subset of the population that is unable to initially attract a potential mate or form a close enough bond to remain for more than a year. There are genetic factors but it is also often birds who had insufficient education as juveniles and young adults. These birds usually end up  having many promiscuous on-the-side encounters with one of a mated pair (because species in this genus lack a concept of cheating, and while jealousy is a thing in their world it isn't usually bond-breaking), or have  short-term mating encounters with other drifters who can't grasp the bond-forming process. In the case of female drifters that become pregnant they usually nest parasitize, as the urge to lay in a well-made nest becomes too great to bear. Otherwise they might lay in the messy pile of grass they managed to amass, and the chicks will have low chance of survival.

Other: Rather than deal with harsh seasonal conditions they migrate between the savannahs in "winter" closer to the equator, and the temperate cooler climate biome in summer further from the equator. They can find food and escape harsh temperatures all year round this way. However it is energetically costly. Their longer wings and tail do give them greater gliding ability but they are still tiny birds crossing vast distances using powered flight at frequent intervals, so they must eat regularly and sometimes on the move.

Because flying insects are often very agile in the air, so have these birds become agile. They can make quick turns and dives to pursue tricky prey. They are reliant on sight as their primary hunting sense and prefer hours of daylight to hunt and feed so that they can clearly see their prey. Their night-vision is subpar, but they are able to home in on small prey in the dim hours of early morning and late evening.