Birder ‘overwhelmed with excitement’ upon seeing Santa Marta Saberwing hummingbird, documented for only third time
A rare hummingbird has been rediscovered by an ornithologist in Colombia after being missing for more than a decade.
The Santa Marta saberwing, a large hummingbird found only in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains in Colombia, was last seen in 2010 and scientists feared the species could become extinct as the rainforests they lived had been largely cleared for agriculture.
But ornithologists are celebrating the rediscovery of Campylopterus phainopeplus after an experienced local birder captured one on camera. This is only the third time the species has been documented: the first in 1946 and the second in 2010, when researchers took the first photos of the species in the wild.
Yurgen Vega, who spotted the hummingbird while working with conservation organizations Selva, ProCAT Colombia and the World Parrot Trust to monitor endemic birds in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, said he felt ” full of emotion” when he saw the bird.
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“The sighting was a total surprise”
“When I first saw the hummingbird, I immediately thought of Santa Marta’s saber wing. I couldn’t believe it was waiting for me there to pull out my camera and start filming. I was almost convinced it was the species, but since I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I preferred to be on the safe side; it could have been the Lazulin saber, often mistaken for Santa Marta’s saber. But once we saw the footage, we knew it was real.”
The Santa Marta saberwing is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and is on the conservation organization Re:wild’s Search for Lost Birds 10 “Most Wanted” list. , a global effort to find species that have not been seen for more than 10 years. The bird is so rare and elusive that John C Mittermeier, director of endangered species outreach for the American Bird Conservancy, likened the sighting to “seeing a ghost”.
The Vega saw hummingbird was a male, identified by its emerald green feathers, bright blue throat, and curved black beak. It was perched on a branch, vocalizing and singing, a behavior that scientists believe is associated with courtship and territorial defense.
The hummingbird among the endemic species
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia is home to abundant wildlife, including 24 species of birds found nowhere else. But scientists estimate that only 15% of the mountain forest is intact. The surprise sighting of the Santa Marta saber wing should help protect its remaining habitat, benefiting the many different species found there.
“This discovery confirms that we still know very little about many of the rarest and most vulnerable species, and more investment is needed to better understand them,” said Esteban Botero-Delgadillo, director of science at the conservation at Selva: Research for Conservation in the Neotropics. “It is knowledge that motivates action and change, it is not possible to preserve what we do not understand.
“The next step is to search for stable populations of this species, trying to better understand where it is found and what the most critical threats are in situ. Of course, this must involve people from local communities and local and regional environmental authorities, so that together we can start a research and conservation program that can have a real impact.
By Graeme Green. Articles in English