The slopes of the Andes themselves, which create so many distinct ecologies, and which effectively isolate so many plants and animals from each other, create one of the conditions for the wide variety of hummingbirds.  Many of the flowering plants of the Andes have actually co-evolved along with the hummingbirds upon which each mutually rely on.  So, slopes and flowers and elevation make for forests of incredible hummingbirds.  Sword-billed hummingbirds, whose bill is longer than the rest of its body, plunge into long-necked passionflowers.  Seeing that bird is to see the extremes of co-evolution.  The plant and the bird need to make each other dependent on the other, so their fates are entertwined.

One hummingbird genus in the Andes is like nothing else in nature, and probably one of nature’s most spectacular.  They are aptly-named the Sylphs, after the invisible elementals of mythology.  Here in Ecuador’s montane forests, the male Long-tailed Sylph has a tail so incredibly long – several lengths of the bird’s body – that it actually makes flight difficult for itself.

The tail, so long, is also of a complex turquoise-cerulean hue.  To see one in flight is to witness something that seems as if it weren’t meant to be. 

Because sylphs are so conspicuous in their bright shades of green, blue and violet, they are also skittish, and rarely spend more than a few seconds in any one location.  And while the surreal colors of hummingbirds – designed to attract mates – seems dangerous in a world where other animals bent on eating hummingbird, those flashes of color are actually surprisingly good at cloaking the bird in the shades of the forest.

After two days walking in these high-elevation forests, I too began to realize that we are capable of locating these tiny animals in the dense, complex forests.  You learn that a certain type of hummingbird has a certain way of perching, and prefers a certain type of place.  If man is a species that evolved to find patterns in nature in order to find food, then something just clicked when I looked over the valley through the fog and rain, and on the other side of the valley, I just knew a long-tailed sylph would be sitting there.  And he was.