Marvelous Spatuletail Hummingbird

You need quick eyesight and to be in the right location to see this gem of a hummingbird. Timid and small compared to some of the larger hummers, it darts out from the undergrowth to its favorite flowers. The right location for it is the drainage area of the Utcubamba river in the Department of Amazonas, Peru, at an altitude between 2200m and 2900m and on the edge of the cloud forest.

I am no birder but became very interested in this Marvelous Spatuletail in 2000, when I was asked to accompany James Hecht, a photographer whose gig is taking photos of rare birds. We went to the Pomacochas, north of Chachapoyas and found a great site where three males would regularly come to feed. James chose his flower and aimed his camera and waited with the patience a Zen student would admire. After 6 days James had 180 shots and was very happy with 11 of them – which meant they were exceptional.

Years later I returned to the same area to work for the BBC who wanted to film the courtship sequence of the male. The male has two long slender tail feathers that end in spatulas. The spatulas he shakes above his head like a castanet player as he tries to lure in the female, who is quite drab compared to him. Then he starts a dance of flying rapidly over her head, twisting in the air so that he constantly looks at her. Next he hovers around her maintaining the eye contact of a tango dancer. If the charm works they then fly off together.

The final sequence can be seen on the David Attenborough Life BBC TV series in the program about birds. Or if you want to see the bird in the wild then the recommended places are at:

Huembo - on the road between Pedro Ruiz and Pomacochas – a reserve with many feeders and many other hummingbirds apart from the Marvelous Spatuletail.

Kentipata – opposite the Museum of Leymebamba. The feeders were put up 4 years ago when there were only two hummingbird species on the land. Now there are seventeen different species which include the Marvelous Spatuletail.

For the purists, a good place to see the bird without feeders is on the land of Santos Montenegro at the highpoint just before the town of Pomacochas.