More Hummingbirds

I promised a little more about hummingbirds.  We saw 60 different species and although I missed four or five of those I managed 25 or so new species and 28 new species photos.  

Studying the incredible variety of colors and plumages of hummingbirds, it’s hard not to ponder the evolutionary advantages that created such a dazzling array of plumages. And why do so many species sport a bright white post ocular spot or line?

Violet-crowned Hummingbird - Note the bright white post-ocular spot

And speaking of hummingbird evolution, while today they are limited to the western hemisphere, apparently fossil records indicate that hummingbirds may have originated in the European region and probably migrated to the Americas via the Bering Sea bridge, probably 10s of millions of years ago.  Humans followed only 15,000 or so years ago.

Hummingbird names often reflect the variety and identifying traits of this family of birds:  hermit, starfrontlet, sunangel, violetear, sunbeam, brilliant, emerald, woodstar, sapphire, thorntail, and coquette.  These categories are usually qualified with colors: violet-crowned, amethyst-throated, violet-tailed, violet-throated, sapphire-vented, rainbow, velvet-purple, purple-bibbed, golden-tailed, and rufous-tailed.

But hummingbirds do range from plain to fancy; here's a sampling.

The Plain and the Fancy: Speckled Hummingbird and Purple-throated Subangel

                                Pale-tailed Barbthroat

Females are often less colorful, or at least more demure, than the corresponding males, but just as often they are just as lovely in their own right.

Female Violet-tailed Sylph

 

Male Violet-tailed Sylph

And sometime the sexual dimorphism is dramatic.

Female or immature male White-necked Jacobin

Male White-necked Jacobin

Light angles affect the perceived color of iridescent feathers, which is a result of refraction not pigmentation.   So the color often changes from one view to the next. 

 

 

Little Sunangel - flashing orange and red

 

Little Sunangel - not flashing

Amethyst-throated Sunangel

Purple-throated Sunangel

 

Sometimes, you need to look closely.

Brown Violetear

Finally, about the most spectacular hummer we saw, the Spangled Coquette.  Jon Dunn (The Glitter in the Green) likens its spangled crown to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust hairdo.

Spangled Coquette

You can view these and many more hummingbird photos from Ecuador on my Flickr website: Ecuador Hummingbirds 2022 

All photos © C.S. Wood

(note: you can peruse photos from this trip at Ecuador BirdTrek 2022)