Pajareando

This morning we went scouting the Estrellita esmeraldena with a telescope. It's the second smallest hummingbird in the world (the smallest one lives in Cuba). They build nests in the dry branches of trees here in the Rio Ayampe watershed in December and January. They like these red flowers so we posted ourselves silently here and waited for them to show up.

We saw one! A female. She buzzed by me and I thought it was an enormous bee or wasp but no no - she was the tiniest bird I've ever seen in my life. And she flies like a little helicopter buzzing around and perching for just a moment before lifting off once more. She really was like her name suggests - a little star of the woods, glittery and sly.