The Story
This male Blue-chested Hummingbird (Polyerata amabilis) hovered to feed at a red flower near Capurganá, in Chocó, Colombia, his wings blurred and his green back and pale underparts in view. It lives in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador, and it does well in degraded former forest as well as in intact forest. It feeds by trap-lining, visiting the same flowers on a regular circuit, and also takes small insects from leaves. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I photographed it with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/60 sec, f/16, ISO 3200. Capurganá can be reached only by boat or small plane, and it has no cars, which keeps the village and its forest edges quiet for birds like this one.
©2025 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Blue-chested Hummingbird (Polyerata amabilis) belongs to the family Trochilidae (Hummingbirds) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2021), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List