Readers’ wildlife photos

Today’s we have photos from Ephraim Heller of hummingbirds from Trinidad and Tobago.  Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

On my February visit to Trinidad and Tobago I managed to photograph 13 of the 18 hummingbirds that are sometimes present on the islands. Previous posts were devoted to my new favorite bird, the tufted coquette (here) and to photos of six other species (here). This post covers the remaining six species. The species that I did not photograph either do not visit feeders or are only present seasonally in the country.

Black-throated mango (Anthracothorax nigricollis). Some individuals have been documented to migrate over 1,000 miles:

Blue-chinned sapphire (Chlorestes notata):

Brown violetear (Colibri delphinae). An aggressive species that zealously defends its nectar sources:

The copper-rumped hummingbird (Saucerottia tobaci) is the most common hummingbird on both islands. An individual amused me over several days as it vigorously defended three feeders from all species, regardless of the fact that food was plentiful:

When light hits the male ruby-topaz hummingbird (Chrysolampis mosquitus) just right it lights up like a neon sign. As in many other hummingbird species, the male’s crown and throat produce color not through pigment but through the physical structure of the feathers: stacked layers of melanin granules in the barbules:

White-chested emerald (Chrysuronia brevirostris). Males and females look alike: