Sword-billed Hummingbird

Identification

The bill is the whole story: 9–11 cm of straight black mandible on a bird whose body is only about 13 cm, making it the only bird in the world with a bill longer than its body. The plumage is comparatively quiet — bronze-green above, greyish below with scattered green spots, an iridescent violet-blue crown and nape, and a long, deeply forked tail. It habitually perches with the bill angled upward, apparently to keep that weight balanced over the feet, and in flight the bill juts so far ahead that it visibly widens the bird's turning circle.

The bill is shaped for flowers whose tubes are too long for any other pollinator, above all passionflowers such as Passiflora mixta, along with Brugmansia and Datura. The bird hovers and slides the bill in full length to reach the nectar, and in parts of its range the plant depends on this single visitor for pollination. It also robs flowers by piercing the base of the corolla, taking nectar without touching the anthers. Because the bill cannot reach its own plumage, it scratches and preens with its feet instead. Individuals return to the same flowering vine for days, checking it repeatedly and driving off rivals.

Look for it in humid montane forest from Venezuela through Colombia and Ecuador to Bolivia, roughly between 2,500 and 3,500 m. The practical approach is to find the flowers rather than the bird: flowering passionflower vines and Brugmansia thickets along forest edges and trails. Early-morning side light brings out the violet crown best, and the bird usually comes back to a favourite bare twig near the flowers within minutes, so waiting beats searching.