Bulletin 393 - Colombia 2021 #10 - Hummingbirds - Pt 2

  I finally made it back to Colombia for my second visit and again used the guide services of Pablo Florez. I went with my friend Martin Jackson. We visited Inirida on the Orinoco, Santa Marta of course, Guajira Peninsula on the Caribbean coast, and a couple of National Parks around Bogota.

There are over 160 species of hummingbirds in Colombia! We saw many species with some rare and endemic ones.

The 4.25" male Blue-throated Starfrontlet (Coeligena helianthea) is a 'fancy one' to quote our guide Pablo. He has a pink belly and blue rump.

Blue-throated Starfrontlet - male

The female is duller with a spotted breast and belly. She has on orange throat.

Blue-throated Starfrontlet - female

Their cousin, the 4.5" White-tailed Starfrontlet (Coeligena phalerata) is endemic to the the Santa Marta mountains. He is green with a conspicuous white tail - an easy ID in that range.

White-tailed Starfrontlet

Woodstars are tiny hummingbirds. The 2.25" male Santa Marta Woodstar (Chaetocercus astreans) is the only woodstar in the Santa Marta range. They sit on top of the trees, so difficult to get a good photo. But he is a green hummer with a red throat and forked tail.

Santa Marta Woodstar - male

The female is buffy below with a square tail.

Santa Marta Woodstar - female

The 2.75" female White-bellied Woodstar (Chaetocercus mulsant) is green backed, mostly white below and rusaty flanks. The male has a purple throat.

White-bellied Woodstar - female

The 3.5" Brown Violetear (Colibri delphinae) is dull brown with the characteristic purple cheek feathers. The sexes are similar.

Brown Violetear

His cousin the 4.75" Sparkling Violetear (Colibri coruscans) is a stunning bird as all his feathers truly sparkle. The sexes are similar. I always enjoy seeing this hummer.

Sparkling Violetear

The 3" male Tyrial Metaltail (Metallura tyrianthina) is green with a bluish throat and reddish tail. 

Tyrial Metaltail - male

The female is paler with an orange throat. However, this is the Santa Marta subspecies (districta).It is a likely split.

Tyrial Metaltail - female Santa Marta ssp

The 3.5" male Crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica)  has a green throat and chest and blue crown, belly and back. A real stunner!.

Crowned Woodnymph - male

The 4.5" male Lazuline Sabrewing (Campylopterus fulcatus) is a green hummer with a blue throat. He has a curved bill.

Lazuline Sabrewing - male

Lastly was a treat - the 3" male Ruby-Topaz Hummingbird (Chyrsolampis mosquitus). This bird has a red head and nape of neck along with  an orange throat. This was a lifer for me.

Ruby-Topaz Hummingbird - male

I put the different bird/mammal families in single folders for easy viewing

I have photos of 136 of the 359 species of hummingbirds.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2021 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.

Bulletin 290 - Columbia #13 - Hummingbirds - part 2

Pablo Florez, the main guide, has co-written a book where to bird in Colombia. In it, he has a list of the Top 30 Most Sought-after Birds by a group of 40 birders visiting Colombia. I saw 12 of them on the trip and got photos of 10. When I show one of these birds,  I will mention its placement on the list.

This is the final bulletin of the amazing birds I saw, on my first trip to Colombia last fall. I started with hummingbirds and I will end with the rest of the hummers.

The 4.75" Sparkling Violetear (Colibri coruscans) is green with purple gorget. I had seen this bird before, but this was my best photo.

Sparkling Violetear

The 4" Mountain Velvetbreast (Lafresnaya lafresnayi) has a curved bill and white in the tail.. The male is green with a black breast and the female shown here has a spotted breast. I did not see a male.

Mountain Velvetbreast - female

The 4" Buff-tailed Coronet (Boissonneaua flavescens) is green with spotted belly and a buffy tail.

Buff-tailed Coronet

The 3.5" male Tourmaline Sunangel (Heliangelus exortis) is green with dark pink throat.

Tourmaline Sunangel - male

The 4.75" White-tailed Hillstar (Urochroa bougueri) is found close to fast moving streams and waterfalls. 

White-tailed Hillstar
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The tiny 2.75" female Purple-throated Woodstar (Calliphlox mitchellii) is green on back and buffy orange below.

Purple-throated Woodstar - female

The 6" male Great Sapphirewing (Pterophanes cyanopterus) is a huge hummer with blue wings.

Great Sapphirewing - male

I have saved the best 2 for the end. The 5 species of thornbills are hummers with very short bills. This is the first I have seen. The 4" male Rainbow-bearded Thornbill (Chalcostigma herrani) is olive green with an orange forehead and crest and an amazing multicolored throat.

Rainbow-bearded Thornbill - male

The female is similar but lacks the multicolored beard.

Rainbow-bearded Thornbill - female

Lastly is the 4" Buffy Helmetcrest (Oxypogon steubelli). This is one of 4 species of Helmetcrest that live on the paramo on mountain tops. Until about 3 years ago, they were considered a single species, but have been split and each one lives on a different mountain. 3 are in Colombia and the other in western Venezuela, so the range is very limited for these birds. The presplit Helmetcrest is number 16 on the top 30 birds to see in Colombia.

Buffy Helmetcrest

Buffy Helmetcrest

We saw this bird on the Nevado del Ruiz volcano tundra. Some of you may remember hearing of a catastrophic volcanic eruption and lahar that killed 22,000 people in the 1985. This was the volcano. It was second worst volcanic disaster of 20th century and 4th deadliest since 1500 AD. Here is story on Wikipedia.

The tragic, heart wrenching story of a 13 year old girl who was trapped in the mud is here.

So it was an amazing experience to see such a rare bird on this famous volcano. It was spewing ash the whole time we were there.

Nevado del Ruiz Volcano - Colombia

There are 348 species of hummingbirds and I have photos of 118. They all can be seen here.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2017 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.

Bulletin 271 - Ecuador 2016 #5 - Hummingbirds

These are the places visited. At the end of each bird description, I will give the 2 letter code where the photo was taken.

Shiripuno Lodge in Amazon  (SH)
Archidona a town on the east slope  (AR)
San Isidro Lodge at a higher elevation on east slope (SI)
Antisana reserve on the paramo    (AN)
Yanacocha reserve   (YA)
Mindo area on west slope has several close reserves that we visited (MI)

Hummingbirds are one of my favorites and are the most amazing birds with their ability to hover and fly backwards and upside down. I photographed about 2 dozen new species on the trip. The rarest of the hummers on the trip was the 7.5" male Fiery Topaz (Topaza pyra). The range map just shows a few dots in the Amazon region where one might find it. However, at Shiripuno lodge, a pair roosts on a branch over the water at night and you can go about 100 yards from the lodge by boat and just wait until they fly in at 5:30. Amazing. The unique tail with crisscrossed extended feather is the ID mark.  SH

Fiery Topaz - male

Several others had interesting tails as well. The 9" male Black-tailed Trainbearer (Lesbia victoriae) is green with 2 long tail feathers.   AN

Black-tailed Trainbearer - male

The 7" male Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii) is green with 2 long shimmering blue tail feathers.  SI

Long-tailed Sylph - male

His cousin, the 7" male Violet-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus coelestis) has a purple tail.  MI

Violet-tailed Sylph - male

The cute 4.5" male Booted Racket-tail (Ocreatus underwoodii) looks like he has white fur boots on along with the racket tail.   MI

Booted Racket-tail - male

Pufflegs are hummers that have boots like the racket-tail above. The 4.5"  Sapphire-vented Puffleg (Eriocnemis luciani) is green with blue under the tail and white leg puffs.   YA

Sapphire-vented Puffleg

The 4.5" Golden-breasted Puffleg (Eriocnemis mosquera) has gold breast, green body and white leg puffs.   YA

Golden-breasted Puffleg

I like the name of this next one. The 4.5" Shining Sunbeam (Aglaeactis cupripennis) is a rich coppery brown.    YA

Shining Sunbeam

The 4.75" Sparkling Violetear (Colibri coruscans) is green with a blue belly and violet on the sides of the face.     AN

Sparkling Violetear

The 4.5" White-tailed Hillstar (Urochroa bouqueri) is green with a blue throat, bronze rump and white tail underneath.   AR

White-tailed Hillstar

I have updated my hummingbird family photo and now have 111 species of the 348. You can browse them all at this link.

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2016 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.

Bulletin 236 - Ecuador #1 - Hummingbirds

I just spent 10 days birding southern Ecuador with an amazing guide, Pablo Andrade, who I found on BirdingPal. His preplanned tour takes you to all 3 southern Ecuador provinces with stays at Buenaventura Reserve, Tapichalaca Reserve and Copalinga Lodge in that order. Buenaventura is on the west slope of the Andes at elevations of 1200 to 4200 feet. Tapichalaca is in the cloud forest of the eastern slope at 8000 feet, and Copalinga is also on the east slope adjacent to Podocarpus Nat'l Park at an elevation of 3000 feet. The accommodations were all excellent and the food got better as we went along with the meals at Copalinga like being in a European bistro. The couple who own Copalinga are Belgian, so it was no surprise.

Well what about the birds? Ecuador is a small country on the Pacific Ocean at the equator. It is between Arizona and Nevada is size at just under 110,000 sq miles. But it has a huge bird list with just under 1700 species (130 species hummers!). This was my first trip to Ecuador and it was a blow-out - 2 Tinamous, 35 hummers, 7 antpittas, 4 cotingas. Most were seen, a few heard only and many photographed. Pablo was an excellent guide and worked diligently to locate the birds and try to bring them to good viewing and photo range. The lodges all had hummingbird feeders, banana feeders for tanagers and some had photo blinds with feeders for secretive birds.

Interestingly, many of the birds were confined to one slope or the other. Most of the Central American birds I was familiar with were on the Pacific (west) slope at Buenaventura. The birds on the east slope were mostly all new.

How is this for a hummingbird feeder? This monstrous feeder is actually a 12" flower pot saucer that they have rigged up in a metal ring. This was at Buenaventura.  They had 3 or 4 of these on the balcony and there were probably 100 hummers of various species flitting around and perching on the nearby branches.

Hummingbird Feeder - Buenaventura Reserve Ecuador

The Amazilia genus of midsized hummingbirds has numerous species with 2 in the USA (Buff-bellied and Violet-crowned). They typically have a partially red lower mandible and the sexes are similar. One bird is actually called the Amazilia Hummingbird (Amazilia amazilia). The bird was on the Pacific coast on the drive to Buenaventura the first day.

Amazilia Hummingbird

The cute Andean Emerald (Amazilia franciae) at Buenaventura is bright green above and snow white below.

Andean Emerald

The Glittering-throated Emerald (Amazilia fimbriata) was at Copalinga. He really did have a glittering throat!

Glittering-throated Emerald

The heliangelus genus of larger hummingbirds are called sunangels. They are in montane forests and often have short bills and forked tails. These were all at Tapichalaca. The male Flame-throated Sunangel (Heliangelus micraster) has a bright orange throat.
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Flame-throated Sunangel - male

The Amethyst-throated Sunangel (Heliangelus amethysticollis) obviously has a pink-purplish throat. The female here just has a central purple patch.

Amesthyst-throated Sunangel - female

The Purple-throated Sunangel (Heliangelus viola) has a dark purple throat. But the female here just has a dull striped throat. They also have a blue crown.

Purple-throated Sunangel - female

Thorntails are hummingbirds in which the males have long thin extensions to their tails. I had seen the Green Thorntail (Discosura conversi) in Costa Rica but I needed better photos. There were literally a dozen birds all day long at the feeders at Buenaventura. They also have a white stripe across the lower back.

Green Thorntail - male

His cousin, the Wire-crested Thorntail (Discosura popelairii) was on the east slope at Copalinga. He has a spiky crest as well as a spiky tail.

Wire-crested Thorntail - male

Violetears are hummingbirds in the genus colibri. Colibri is also the Spanish word for hummingbird. The Brown Violetear (Colibri delphinae) I had seen before but needed better photos.There were several at the feeders at Buenavista. Interestingly, as I studied them, I noticed that the violet feathers on the sides of the neck would be flared out when another hummer approached, I guess as a warning not to come too close.

Brown Violetear

On the other slope at Copalinga was the Sparkling Violetear (Colibri coruscans).

Sparkling Violetear

The  male Golden-tailed Sapphire (Chrysuronia oenone) has a blue head and gold tail. This bird was at Copalinga.

Golden-tailed Sapphire - male

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2015 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.