High on Birds, High in the Andes

Welcome to Colombia, one of the world's most popular birding destinations.

Almost 1/2 of all hummingbirds occur in Colombia.

In a relatively small area of the country, birding involves great variation of climate and habitat, from near treeline altitudes to dry lowland forest and moist foothills from the Western cordillera across the Cauca Valley to the Central cordillera.

Like Central American countries, Colombia borders both the Pacific and the Atlantic (Carribean) oceans.  The Andes mountains here are split into three ranges: western cordillera, central cordillera, eastern cordillera.

Although hummingbirds today only occur in the western hemisphere, fossil discoveries indicate that hummingbirds may have originally evolved in the old world.

One hummingbird haven:  Finca Alejandria, just north of Cali, with gardens and feeders teeming with hummers.  A mesmerizing first stop on a birding tour.

Because of species like this Long-tailed Sylph, one of the hummingbirds that has evolved extravagant appendages.

And the similar Violet-tailed Sylph, once considered the same species.

Another of the "tailed" hummingbirds, the Booted Racket-tail.

Many hummingbirds are relatively plain, like the Brown Violet-ear.

Many flowers are ornithophilous: they have adapted especially to attract hummingbirds, in part because they feed in cool and rainy conditions, which insects tend not to do.

Hummingbirds feed as often as 8 times per hour and must consume ½ to several times their body weight in nectar per day.  They digest the sugar water in 20 minutes and spend most of the day digesting and preening.

Some have highly adapted bills, tailored to flower shapes, like this Green Hermit.  Although, as noted, hummingbird taxonomy is constantly being refined, Hermits are currently considered one of the three basic groups of hummingbirds:  Hermits (36), Topazes and Jacobins (4), and typical hummingbirds (+/- 300). 

And some use their bills as a weapon as well as a tool like this Collared Inca who was protecting a row of flowering bushes.

Note how the branch is worn where he has established his guard post.  Hummingbirds can't really walk or hop, but they can slide along branches.

Maybe this guy is evolving into the ”Cross-billed Hummingbird”, but it’s  really just a bill deformity on an Andean Emerald.  Interestingly, I recently photographed a Rufous Hummingbird in Arizona with the same type of deformity.

Many Hummingbirds love a good shower, like this Andean Emerald.

Here he is, all clean and dried off.

Rainy, foggy, shady conditions - typical for this area - made photography challenging, but rewarding. 

This is a Sparkling Violet-ear.  Neotropic Hummingbird names are usually much more appropriately descriptive than many NA species.  Consider southwestern US hummingbirds like Anna’s, Allen’s, and Rivoli’s (which was formerly and more appropriately called Magnificent Hummingbird), compared to some of the names given to Neotropical birds.

Lots to see besides just birds; Colombia like most of the neotropics displays an amazing plant diversity.

And stunning vistas including distant active volcanos.  This one in the Central Cordillera was viewed across the Cauca Valley from the Pacific Cordillera.

Several endemic species can be found at the top of Cerro Montezuma in the western Cordillera.

Hows this for world class bird photography?  The rare endemic Dusky Starfrontlet.  On this trip we tallied 45 species of hummingbird, of which I got photos of 37, but missed this one, probably the rarest one we saw.  This bird is critically endangered and only occurs in a few remote mountaintops in Colombia.

Slightly less rare, but as colorful AND successfully photographed.

We did see other kinds of birds of course, including this very rare bird, only found in a few spots in the high western Andes of Colombia.  This one was very near the military outpost we visited at the top of Cerro Montezuma.

Although conditions are generally peaceful at the moment, tensions continue. Visitors to Cerro Montezuma are often welcomed at 8200’ by soldiers guarding a telecommunications facility.  

Hummingbirds aren’t the only colorful neotropic bird group of course.

And of course, the tanagers, another group very popular with birders.

One of Colombia's endemic tanagers. For listers, endemics are one of the main draws of a given birding location.

Wood warblers aren't plentiful at the higher elevations.  This one at the high elevation of Cerro Montezuma is similar to the Collared Redstart seen farther north, but without the red crest.

Back to a few more spectacular hummingbirds of the high Andes.

Hummers use the forked tip of their tongue to grab a sip of nectar and then pull the tongue back; when the tongue shoots out again, the nectar is effectively squeezed back into the mouth by the bill along grooves in the tongue.  It’s not a straw.  Hummer tongues may be up to twice as long as the bill.

Some hummers are really cute little guys, like the Woodstars.  This is a male.

And this is a female. Take a few thousand hummingbird pictures and eventually you might catch one relieving itself.  Hummers secret almost pure water after digesting the sugars in nectar, which takes only about 20 minutes.  

Another little one, the Purple-throated Woodstar, which only occurs in the western Andes of Colombia and Peru.  Many of the most stunning images of hummingbirds show completely frozen action, usually by using complicated flash systems.  It’s something of a justification on my part, because I’m too lazy to get into the flash business, but I like having some blur to illustrate motion.  This is at 1/800 of a second ISO 5000, which means more noise is introduced as you can see.  Some of that can be reduced by software.

This photo does illustrate one of the amazing capabilities of hummingbirds:  they can rotate their wings such that both the up and down motions generate lift.  That’s how the hover and fly backwards.

A female Purple-throated Woodstar.  Current theory holds that many flowers evolved red colors, as well as specific flower shapes,  to attract hummingbirds as pollinators because insects generally don’t recognize color and are not as reliable as pollinators especially at cool, wet altitudes.  Better light on this one allowed a shooting speed of 1/1000 of a second, but still too slow to freeze the wing beat.

Not a Colombia hummer, but I threw this in to illustrate their pollinating effect.   Sometimes the pollen accumulates on top of the head, making for confusing ID.  Female Lucifer Hummingbird in Arizona. 

Hummingbirds use a variety of strategies for feeding:  species that have adapted bill shapes to specialize on specific flowers usually practice “traplining” or following a route populated by those special flowers.  Other species also follow this feeding strategy.

Many hummingbirds are “territorialists” like these Collared Incas.  Territorialists defend especially productive patches of flowers by driving off others, even of their own species.  At feeders in the southwest US, Anna's Hummingbirds are famous for this behavior.  Note again the reverse thrust position of the wings.

Buff-tailed Coronet – note the small bill which somewhat limits their flower choices.  These are also territorialists, possibly because of limited flower options.  

Shutter speed was only 1/125 of a second because of low light, but it caught the wings just as they paused on landing, which this species always does.  So knowing that you can be ready to get this shot.

And even though they fight over flowers, they still hang out together afterwards to talk over the day’s nectar selections.

A few species are considered more anti-social:  marauders and filchers try to sneak by the territorialists and snatch a meal; piercers, like this Violet-tailed Sylph, poke holes in the flower to reach the nectar, presumably to avoid competition with typical feeders.

Many hummingbirds use a combination of these feeding strategies depending on availability of flowers and the timing of nectar production.

Hummingbirds are not the only interesting behavioral group of birds in Colombia: some fascinating Antpittas that have been trained to come to feeding sites for free worms, just as hummingbirds have learned to come to nectar feeders.  This is the endemic Brown-banded Antpitta.

The stunning Chestnut-crowned Antpitta.

And the dainty Slate-crowned Antpitta.  These guys look like eggs with feet.

Along the way, we learned the Colombian version of horseshoes – essentially throwing a heavy rock at a target on a sandpile.

In the Central Cordillera the Los Nevados National Park is one of the few locations to find the Buffy Helmetcrest, an endemic hummingbird, at this location 13,000 feet ASL.  

Again, photography conditions are often less than optimal requiring some post-processing work with a software tool called “dehazing.”

Here’s the original photo before processing.

Descending a bit to better weather, we were suddenly treated to an amazing show of migrating Swainson’s Hawks, an estimated 8,500 soaring past us.

Mixed in were a few Black-chested Buzzard-Eagles.

But an even more surprising appearance was made by an Andean Condor, seen on only 20% or so of these trips.

Not far from Los Nevados NP is yet another lodge specializing in hummingbirds, like the demure Golden-breasted Puffleg.

And the aptly named Shining Sunbeam.  Again, they use much more descriptive names for these amazingly diverse birds in the Neotropics.

The Great Sapphirewing is one of the largest hummingbirds and one of the few that exhibits iridescence in its wing feathers.  The physics of iridescence weakens the feather structure, so usually it is not found in flight feathers.

The amazing Sword-billed Hummingbird.  Because its bill is too long to use for preening, this guy is the only hummingbird that can scratch its back with its feet.  Think about the evolutionary contortions necessary to arrive at this marvel of nature.

It is really hard to leave this beautiful country and its spectacular birds, but it's good to know that future trips will be every bit as rewarding with new and amazing sights and sightings.

These and more photos may be perused here:  Colombia 2018