Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve

Here we have a very distinctive hummingbird - the Collared Inca. In most lighting they appear all black with a white chest. but if you get them out in some direct light you can make out the blue/violet cap and the green throat.

Make sure you hire a birding guide for your visit to the valley. In addition to locating and identifying the birds, a guide is the only way you'll find this amazing hummingbird garden. It's hidden among some dense vegetation, with the only marker being an overgrown footpath leading from the road.

Yesterday I posted a female Violet-tailed Sylph, and today we have the much showier male. It's a wonder that they can fly with such long tail feathers, but clearly the reproductive advantage outweighs any such inconvenience.

The Tandayapa Valley is a birder's paradise. The rugged slopes of this pristine cloud forest offer a spectacle of exotic birds like few places on earth. The mountain roads themselves are great avenues to hunt out mixed flocks, but for a truly amazing experience you need to visit Tony Nunnery's hummingbird garden at Parador Pacha Quindi.

Tony grew up in the US but has spent the last fifteen years in a small cottage he and his wife built on 70 hectares in the Tandayapa Valley. They have been reforesting the former pasture and have established a phenomenal hummingbird garden right outside their house. The sight and sound of a hundred hummingbirds whizzing about is something you won't soon forget. It also makes for great photo opportunities, so much so that professionals will even shoot here with their shade umbrellas and strobe arrays. I didn't have anything that fancy, and you'd do quite well here with a 200mm lens and large flash.

BTW, I believe that this here is a Speckled Hummingbird.

Here we have a female Violet-tailed Sylph. How do I know it's a female? Because the male has a long blue tail that extends twice his body length.

We spotted this beautiful girl at Tony Nunnery's hummingbird garden in the Tandayapa Valley. I love hummingbirds and always hunt down the best places to see and photograph them, and Tony's garden is world class. Hundreds of hummingbirds from at least a dozen species flitted around us in the short couple of hours that we were there. A place you must visit if you ever find yourself in Ecuador.

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