Pilgrimage to the land of hummingbirds

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Empress Brilliant © 2009 Sheri L. Williamson

Early this week I returned from my first trip to Ecuador, a legendary destination for birders in general and hummingbirders in particular. The country’s bird diversity is hard to pin down, but based on The Birds of Ecuador field guide it’s nearly 1600 species, a staggering 132 of which are hummingbirds. The Tandayapa Valley alone has recorded 41 hummingbird species.

This was primarily a working trip, organized and financed by fellow members of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory’s hummingbird banding team (mil gracias, Bill and Pam!), so of course we spent most of our eight days in the country watching hummingbirds, but we got in some general birding, too.

Between now and the New Year I’ll post on some of our adventures with photos of a few of the natural wonders we enjoyed. Here’s a male Empress Brilliant as a taste of visual treats to come.

2 thoughts on “Pilgrimage to the land of hummingbirds”

  1. Hi Sheri,

    Just wanted to give you a heads-up about a one-hour ‘Nature’ program on “Hummingbirds” which recently aired on PBS. I’m sure you may have already seen it but just in case not, I did want to holler. For me, it was quite informative. :)

    Here is a link to the video page where you can view the program….

    http://video.pbs.org/video/1380512531/

    Take Care….Alan

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  2. Thanks for posting the link, Alan. I’ve already seen it (and ranted about it on Facebook ;>), but anyone interested in hummingbirds should take the opportunity to watch it on line if they missed the broadcast (or even if they didn’t).

    Reply ↓

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