When we arrived in Arizona a couple of years ago to weather the initial coronavirus storm, we were delighted to discover ourselves in hummingbird heaven. More than half of America's 33 recorded hummingbird species can be glimpsed in the state, and in Sedona we were in a prime location for hummingbird viewing. Junebug, in particular, was thrilled to go see her "honeybirds" at every opportunity. By contrast, there are only four recorded hummingbird species in our home state of Maine — and three of them can be glimpsed only rarely and only in the far southern reaches of the state. And, of course, since hummingbirds are restricted exclusively to the New World, we hadn't seen any during our overseas assignments in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Then we traveled to Colombia this month, which forced us to redefine the meaning of "hummingbird heaven."
We spent two weeks in Colombia, and during that time we saw and photographed 36 different hummingbird species — THREE DOZEN: more than can be seen in all of the 50 American states combined! And we barely made a dent in the Colombian list. The country counts with nearly 170 different hummers — roughly half of all known hummingbird species in the world. We saw just over 20 percent.
The sheer variety of these birds was overwhelming: tiny hummers that buzzed around like bumblebees and giant, slow-moving ones that seemed to get boxed out from feeders by the smaller, more aggressive species; hummingbirds with straight bills and curved bills and one — the sword-billed hummingbird — whose bill is so absurdly long that it appears to be longer than its body (the sword-billed hummingbird has the longest bill in relation to its size of any bird in the world); and of course all of them flashed a panoply of brilliant colors when the light caught their feathers at just the right angle.
These sightings, starting with our visits to the Cock-of-the-rock and Yellow-eared Parrot reserves near Jardin, were almost always the highlights of our birding outings in Colombia. At the Yellow-eared Parrot reserve, the flurry of early morning hummingbird activity was so intense that D hardly registered when the forest ranger walked out of his hut in his underwear to greet us. D was too focused on figuring out how to photograph the numerous rapidly-moving birds, some of which buzzed right by our faces.
Because of how fast hummingbirds move and how briefly they sit still, one may be tempted to think they never perch at all, but that would be a mistake. Without the aid of a tripod, the only way for D to ensure good photographs was to scout the nearby bushes and open branches and figure out where the different hummers like to perch for a split-second.
Luckily, unlike many birds, hummingbirds are not shy. Far from it! In Montezuma, where we headed after our visit to the Yellow-eared Parrot Reserve, a particularly aggressive velvet-purple coronet actually alit on D's finger for half a second while he aimed his camera at another hummingbird that had perched nearby. There too we encountered a prodigious variety of hummingbird species. Seeing them buzz the feeders was so impressive a sight that despite being completely worn out by a full day of birding, D spent an hour photographing them upon our return to the lodge.
We had a hard time narrowing down our favorites to share — D wound up taking about 5,000 photos during our trip, and an unhealthily high percentage of those were hummingbird shots. A few of our absolute favorites are included in this post for your enjoyment: a snapshot of the incredible colors and avian diversity one is likely to find when birding in Colombia.
Pictured from top to bottom: violet-tailed sylph (female); velvet-purple coronet; long-tailed sylph; buff-tailed coronets; collared inca; green hermit; lesser violetear; tourmaline sunangel; booted racket-tail.
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