Hummingbirds

Above is a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird that I photographed in my back yard in Massachusetts in 2020. The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird is the only species of hummingbird regularly found in the northeastern quadrant of the United States. There are 363 species of hummingbirds according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology which maintains the globally recognized Clements Taxonomy of birds. Interestingly, hummingbirds are only found in the Americas, overwhelmingly in South and Central America. I have now photographed 18 species of hummingbirds. I photographed 9 or half of these species on my Costa Rica trip which is what prompted this post. However, I thought it might be interesting to put all of the hummingbirds together in a single blog entry.

I will proceed with my hummingbird journey geographically. Since there are no other hummingbirds in the northeast US, I shift now to Arizona. In November of 2022, Kate and I spent a week visiting Sedona. Above is a Broad-Tailed Hummingbird I photographed as we walked through the desert mountains near our bed and breakfast. The background is from the sun hitting the red/orange dirt of the hills.

This is a photograph of an Anna’s Hummingbird. While I did see Anna’s Hummingbirds on Kate and my Sedona trip, I did not end up with good photos. This photo I took when Kate and I returned to Arizona in March of 2023 prior to attending a wedding of an extended family member. We spend 5 days in the mountains of southeastern Arizona at a bed and breakfast in Ramsey Canyon. This photo was taken just after dawn outside of the B&B.

The Ramsey Canyon Inn targets bird watchers and photographers. It has set up a bird blind which I took advantage of one morning while we were there. The photograph above is of a Rivoli's Hummingbird which, like the Anna’s Hummingbird, were quite common on the property at the time.

This Broad-Billed Hummingbird appeared only extremely briefly at the blind. Unfortunately, this is the best shot I have of it. It would be a very nice photo if the branch were not in the foreground partially blocking the bird. Sigh.

This Violet-Crowned Hummingbird is the final hummingbird I photographed at the blind and at Ramsey Canyon Inn. Similar to the Broad-Billed above, this Violet-Crowned appeared just briefly. However, in this case, I was able to get a clean photograph.

Shifting now to the Caribbean Islands, this photo is of a Green-Throated Carib taken in Barbados in January of 2023. We stayed on the Island with some friends in a rented home on the beach. This was taken from the balcony looking out over the ocean.

This Antillean-Crested Hummingbird was the other species that I would see from our balcony in Barbados, although it appeared only occasionally.

Drifting south to the island of St. Vincent, this is Purple-Throated Carib. Apparently, in the right light, the throat can have a distinctive purple look to it. This photo is a testament to modern cameras and photo software. I was hiking in a mountain rain forest with very little light. I saw this bird in the distance. Looking through my lens, it was justa small part of the camera’s frame. The fact that I was able to get the camera to focus on the bird (rather than all of the leaves and branches everywhere) and get a handful of shots is somewhat amazing. This image is a highly cropped version of that photo. The original photo was full of grainy noise since there was so little light. Modern photo software allowed me to eliminate this noise and increase the size of the image without degrading the picture.

Finally, we shift to my week in Costa Rica where I have photographed 9 hummingbird species. This is a Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird with its namesake tail on full display. I photographed this bird at the Pierella Ecological Garden on my second day.

Our third day, we visited a small place called Donde Cope which had a collection of hummingbird feeders and flowers that attracted a wide variety of hummingbirds. Above is a Bronze-Tailed Plumeleteer.

Less than 10 minutes later, I was able to get this shot of a Long-Billed Hermit at the same flower. I like this photo because it clearly displays the long bill which gives the bird its name. With the relatively low light available, I took this photo at a shutter speed of 1/640 of a second. Given how fast hummingbirds beat their wings, the wings show the clear signs of motion blur. To get crisp shots of their beating wings, I like to try for a shutter speed of at least 1/3200 of a second.

This is a Scaly-Breasted Hummingbird coming in to feed. The staff at Donde Cope, to help us get photos like this, periodically wander out to the flowers and spray them with sugar water which hummingbirds feed on. Thus, the drops on the flower are not morning dew but rather food for the birds.

I took this photo of two White-Necked Jacobins less than 10 minutes later. Looking at this photo, it seems that the name is odd since the white on the male only appears on its breast and a patch on its back. However, if the female in the foreground and the male switched positions, we would see that the white goes up the neck of the female. This photo taken at a shutter speed of 1/1600 of a second. Notice that the wings are much sharper than the previous 2 photos at 1/640 of a second. Nonetheless, there is still a small bit of motion blur on the wing tips.

For the fourth day of our Costa Rican trip, we drove up into the mountains. On route, we stopped for lunch at a place called Miriam’s Restaurant. The restaurant had a balcony and deck with a beautiful view down the side of the mountain. With a number of feeders out, there was a wide variety of bird life which I will show in my next Cost Rica post. This hummingbird feeder was on the deck and constantly had hummingbirds visiting. In this photo, Mark Smith, the guide for our trip, slowly walked up to the feeder and put his finger out. Obligingly, this female Talamanca Hummingbird used it as a perch in order to feed. Flying away from the feeder is a Lesser Violetear.

Here is the Lesser Violetear in more detail.

Above is an isolated view of the female Talamanca Hummingbird.

The male Talamanca Hummingbird has a much more vivid head than the female.

This is a male White-Throated Mountain-Gem. The naming of the White-Throated Mountain-Gem is based on the male’s appearance. This is in contrast to the White-Necked Jacobin I discussed above whose name corresponds to appearance of the female.

Here is a photo of the female White-Throated Mountain-Gem, a distinctively beautiful bird in its own right.

Our final stop on the Costa Rica trip was high up in the mountains where we photographed the Resplendant Quetzals. On our final morning, before departing to drive back to San Jose, we spent a bit of time with the lodge owners trying to photograph the Volcano Hummingbird. This tiny hummingbird is found on the volcanic mountains of Costa Rica and appears on the Costa Rican 20,000 colones bill. This is my 18th species of hummingbird, but I look forward to adding more over time.