Hoary puffleg, La Planada Nature Reserve, Colombia

Although it is a dull bird to see, this was a high value observation to us. The range of this hummingbird is small, it only occurs in very wet cloud forests in the South west of Colombia and North west of Ecuador.

It was also the hardest bird to photograph of our entire 2018 trip. The initial discovery was easy, it was one of the first things we saw rocketing by as we entered the viewpoint of La Planada Nature Reserve. We also were told which flower it frequently attended, low in the dense forest. Yet we spent two mornings in a row waiting for it to settle down in a position to photograph it. It would only make a move very infrequently, like once per hour, and then it would be gone before you could blink. You wouldn't even have an idea where it came from or went, all you hear is the drum of its wings.

On this second morning, we split tasks and I was assigned to waiting for this little punk, in the streaming rain. Luckily, it came within the first hour and paused for a good 10 seconds.