Brilliant hummers...

This afternoon James and I went for a long walk through High Park and beyond to Humber Bay. Lovely weather with light snow and a gentle breeze. Not many interesting birds though so I thought I'd cast my mind back to warmer climes and more spectacular avian fare!

I've always liked hummingbirds. They are so active and animated and glitter like no other bird can. I've been lucky to see a whole pile of them over the years so here are a few videograbs to make me wanna go back to the south.


What a blocker!! This is surely one of my favourite hummingbirds, the totally brilliant and otherworldly Velvet-purple Coronet. It lives in southwest Colombia and western (mostly northwest) Ecuador, basically a choco endemic. It is never very common and is always a prized sighting. This one was visiting feeders in the garden of Barbara and Tony Nunnery in the Tandayapa valley in northwest Ecuador.


This tiny sprite is a male Rufous-crested Coquette. The coquettes are a small family of diminuative hummers in which the males are richly adorned with wonderfully colourful plumes on the head. Some species have highly patterned and elongated whiskers whereas others, as with this species, have expressive crests. All have a whitish bar on the upper tail coverts. This lovely bird was watched for some time feeding on various flowers in the garden of Amazonia Lodge in SE Peru.


The Woodstars are another group of tiny, insect-like hummingbirds. This is the Purple-throated Woodstar which, like the Coronet above, is a choco endemic. The woodstars are not as spectacular as the coquettes but nonetheless have characters all of their own. This energetic waife was seen in the Tandayapa valley in Ecuador.


There can be few south American birds as enigmatic as the almost unbelievable Sword-billed Hummingbird! I'll never forget my first, admittedly brief, sighting on my first trip to Ecuador many moons ago. It was just outside of the village of Papallacta on the east slope. We had staked out a Datura bush in the hopes of seeing this bird. We waited a long time...and then, suddenly, there it was! And then it was gone! I had to wait a long time before I saw another. Now of course all you have to do is stand in front of a feeder! This fantastic bird (a female) was seen at Yanacocha, just outside of Quito in Ecuador.


Some hummingbirds can appear rather dull...that is until the sunlight catches them! Then they can be transformed into the most wonderful of Christmas tree decorations. Of course, in some places the sun rarely shines. Such is the case where this beautiful little hummingbird lives, Bosque Unchog in the Carpish mountains of central Peru. This is the Coppery Metaltail. It is endemic to Peru and is highly local, though is quite common at Unchog. When seen in reasonable light - it is often dull and misty at Unchog - this lovely bird glows with a brilliant coppery-russet colour I've not seen on any other hummingbird.

I hope you, my faithful readers, enjoy these birds. Where are you all anyway...I'm missing you're comments. If I get positive feedback I'll show you some more hummingbirds treats...