The Story
I made this photo of a Sword-billed Hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) at the Observatorio de Colibríes in La Calera, near Bogotá, Colombia. The Sword-billed Hummingbird uses its bill to drink from flowers with long corollas and has coevolved with the passionflower Passiflora mixta. It is a trap-line feeder, visiting flowers on a regular circuit. It perches with its bill angled upward to ease the strain of the heavy beak. The Observatorio de Colibríes sits at about 3,000 meters in high Andean forest, in the vereda Frailejonal of La Calera, near Bogotá. IUCN lists the Sword-billed Hummingbird as Least Concern, with a decreasing population.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. Visits are limited to groups of 20 and to Tuesday through Saturday, because, as the founder says, the hummingbirds also need a rest from people.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Sword-billed Hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) 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 2024), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List