Ecuador: Hummingbird Extravaganza – Gems of the Andes

Ecuador is located on the most diverse land mass in the World, South America, which is known as the “Bird Continent”, by virtue of its massive bird list of nearly 3500 species that contains more than 30% percent of the World birds. Some bird groups are very conspicuous there, and very well represented, with perhaps none more so than the HUMMINGBIRDS. There are no less than 132 SPECIES OF HUMMINGBIRDS IN ECUADOR, or 40% of all the World hummingbirds! While neighboring Colombia holds a handful more, one of the advantages of trying to stack up a decent hummingbird list in Ecuador is its size. It is a small country, akin to the size of the US state of Colorado (Colombia is much larger), and it has a good road network, and a wonderful system of birding lodges, many of which can be visited on a relatively short visit. In short, hummingbirds are extremely accessible in Ecuador and getting a long list of hummingbirds on a single visit is very easy and illustrated well on this hummingbird-focused tour. The highest diversity of hummingbirds on Earth is found in the Andes, so that is where we will spend the entirety of the tour (i.e., on all three parts).

The tour takes the form of three parts, which can each be taken separately as one short tour, or combined together, to form a longer tour (i.e., as either a two-part or three-part tour). The first part covers the Andes in Southern Ecuador, where a number of specialty hummingbirds can be found, like the jaw-dropping Rainbow Starfrontlet, Purple-throated Sunangel, Blue-throated Hillstar (only described in 2018), Violet-throated and Neblina Metaltails, and the gorgeous Spangled Coquette. Ecuador is essentially split into two by a “bichain” of the Andes that runs like a spine down the middle of the country, restricting some birds species to occur on one or other side of these chains. Therefore, the final two parts will focus on Northern Ecuador, with the first of these (Part II: The East) focusing on the east slope of the Andes, while the final leg of the tour (Part III: The Northwest) will focus on the Choco bioregion of Ecuador’s west slope. Some of the impressive hummingbird species on offer in the east include, Peruvian Racket-tail, Tourmaline Sunangel, Black-thoated Brilliant, Napo Sabrewing, Wire-crested Thorntail, Gould’s Jewelfront, and Gorgeted Woodstar. In the Northwest, stunners like Sword-billed Hummingbird and White-booted Racket-tail, and Choco specialties such as spectacular Velvet-purple Coronet, Violet-tailed Sylph, Gorgeted Sunangel, and Purple-bibbed Whitetip all occur. On our inaugural, full three-part 2025 tour one participant (who joined all parts), personally saw more than 80 species of hummingbird on a single trip!

While the hummingbirds are the stars of these tours, (focused on getting a large list of them, including some rare and local ones), we will also see plentiful other birds in this remarkably diverse tropical country, which has a bird list of more than 1650 species. Therefore, Ecuador is a true heavyweight in terms of countries with extremely long bird lists, in treasured company with the likes of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. The major distinction for Ecuador though, is it is a much smaller country, which is far easier to travel around, (due to a decent road system), and has an added advantage of boasting a network of superb birding lodges all over the country, something those other South American countries cannot either claim or compete with. Among the other birds we are likely to see are cock-of-the-rocks, toucans, motmots, woodpeckers,  a profusion of parrots, and “tons” of tanagers; (i.e., potentially more than 40 species from the tanager family by taking all three parts)!

​PLEASE NOTE: This tour suits both BIRDERS with an interest in hummingbirds, and BIRDERS WITH CAMERAS, as we will visit plenty of feeders and have ample opportunities to photograph many hummingbird species. However, it is NOT a Photography tour and does not use multi-flash techniques to capture perfectly frozen hummingbird pictures. That is something that is done on our Northern Ecuador Photo Tour, if you wish for something like that. Unlike that tour, we will see and enjoy more species of hummingbirds, as we will visit more sites, and more altitudes than that other, which focuses on getting near perfect photos of less species.