Hummingbirds

Thus, we begin day 2 of our adventure. It turns out that we were the only ones to book this workshop. Thus, we are having a private tour and it is nice. Our guide, Javier, is very pleasant and quite knowledgeable. We had a lot of fun with him.

On our first full day under his guidance, we went down the mountain from Quito on the amazon river (east) side, near a small town called Baeza, to a small place (I don't know quite what to call it) named La Brisa. Here we sat under a roof 10-15 feet from the edge of the forest and a good variety of hummingbirds.

The bird above and below is a Peruvian Racket-tail. The most exotic looking of the hummers we saw, he has a long tail in two prongs with "rackets" at the end of each. This one had yellow "boots" of feathers that cover his feet. There is another variety that we did not see that has white boots.

Next up is the Bronzy Inca. From a distance, he is rather drab. But, up close you can see the bronze color in the shoulder areas and wings. 

This is a pair of Green-Backed Hillstars sitting on a limb. The female, on the left, is farther away and a bit out of focus. The male, on the right shows the brighter colors. In the upper right is a Peruvian Racket-tail executing rapid turn.