Sylphs and sunbeams, hermits and hillstars, emeralds, coronets and woodnymphs. Not the names of Inca gods but just some of the 36 kinds of hummingbird I saw on a recent visit to Ecuador. And that’s just a fraction of the 132 species found there, more than any other country.
But of all of these dazzling little creatures, the most striking was one with a longer bill in relation to its body than any other bird in the world: the sword-billed hummingbird. With the scientific name Ensifera – meaning “sword-bearing” – it looks like a medieval lancer preparing for a joust.
We were at Zuro Loma reserve, on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano, 3,200 metres (10,500ft) above sea level.
But unlike other hummers, which hover by, or land on, the feeders to allow close-up views, the shy and elusive sword-bill does not linger. Instead, it zooms in, feeds for a few seconds, and then vanishes into the surrounding vegetation.
That extraordinary bill – up to 12cm (nearly 5in) long – evolved to allow the species to probe flowers whose corollas are too long for any other hummingbird to reach, and obtain the precious nectar within.
However, this does have one big disadvantage, as revealed in the BBC TV series Planet Earth II: the bird is unable to use its bill to preen and clean its feathers, and so has to resort to using its feet instead.
