From Hummingbirds to Sunbirds

I will will will write something substantial here soon. I've just come home from a successful Northern Peru tour, where everyone got multiple lifebirds (including me – I think I had four, some had over 200). Hummingbirds were a huge part of the trip, with five feeding stations, two of the new in the past year and all of them newer than about 6 years.

Here's my one Marvelous Spatuletail photo that wasn't bad enough to trash. It was one of 41 species of hummingbirds we had on the tour, and probably the most-wanted hummer for all birders that come to this region.

I'm home for three nights before I head to western Africa for a 6-week vacation (but yes, I'll have my laptop with me to catch up on lots of work). I'll be in Ghana for 1 week and then Togo for 5 weeks, staying with my friends Kate and Mich. No hummers there, but the nectar-feeding sunbirds are at least as gaudy with their iridescence. I'm told that Johanna's Sunbird is a good possibility – and I'd never even heard of it before this morning.