Serra dos Tucanos: garden hummers

So, I reckon, these deserve a post in their own right – what do you think?

Yeah, I know, pretty awful, no?

The garden at Serra dos Tucanos features around ten hummingbird feeders, topped up regularly with sugar water, and these attract a more-or-less constant stream of birds. The commonest, and dominant, species is the Sombre Hummingbird, a Brazilian endemic:

… though both Violet-capped Woodnymph and Brazilian Ruby are pretty regular too – shown below in near-identical poses!

The Brazilian Ruby above is a female bird – quite distinct from the male’s iridescent plumage illustrated below, and at the top. I never did get a shot showing the ruby-coloured throat patch, though; this is only visible when the bird is completely head-on, and the light is on the throat.

Another couple of species were also seen around the feeders less frequently – a handsome Black Jacobin that I never caught with the camera at all, and the Atlantic Forest endemic Saw-billed Hermit. I only managed a very dodgy flight shot of the latter – enough to show the impressively long bill, though.

 

Flight shots were difficult, unsurprisingly… though borrowing another guest’s external flash for half an hour was an interesting experiment. If I’d known what I was doing with it, things might have got quite productive! As it turns out, this shot is probably the best I managed – taken with natural light only.