The Flying Jewels of Tobago

Faraaz Abdool, birding enthusiast and photographer, shares his fascination for hummingbirds. All photos by Faraaz Abdool

They are nature’s bio-mechanical marvels, with heartbeats that sound more like two stroke engines on the highway than things made of sinew. Like every other bird, they are feathered, yet unlike every other bird, their tiny feathers seem to emit their own light, glittering like jewels on a gala night. Their wings do not flap up and down like every other flying bird, but in a mysterious figure-eight pattern. They are hummingbirds, of which there are almost three hundred and sixty species – all of which are found only in the Americas. 

A Rufous-breasted Hermit hovers briefly in the open, before darting off to the undergrowth. Photo courtesy Faraaz Abdool

It is impossible to maintain one of these birds in a cage, not because of their size as they are the smallest birds in the world, but due to the extreme nature of their daily lives. Their metabolisms are so quick that if they do not get their nectar fix on time, they will run out of fuel and starve to death. They can only survive the night by slowing their metabolism to a staggering 15% of what it is during the day. The human equivalent would be for us to deliberately slow our heartbeat to nine or ten beats per minute!

Hummingbirds feed largely on nectar obtained from flowers while on the wing; and their role as pollinator makes them crucial to the propagation of countless plants. Hovering at a flower to feed from it is only made possible by their immense breast muscles, powering wingbeats as fast as eighty times a minute. The figure-eight pattern traced by the beating wing ensures that lift is always being generated, pushing efficiency to its maximum level.

Our tiny islands within the Americas, Trinidad and Tobago, host 18 species of hummingbird on record, a count which exceeds that of all other Caribbean territories put together. On Trinidad, there are 17 species of hummingbirds, most of these are forest denizens making their homes in heavily wooded areas to take advantage of the flowers from trees and plants there. They are not limited to forests, however, as there are certain species which are found in habitats such as mangrove swamps and open savanna.

The subspecies of Copper-rumped Hummingbird that is found in Tobago like this one pictured here is the nominate subspecies and is actually fractionally larger and more vividly coloured than its counterparts on Trinidad and Venezuela.

The Tufted Coquette is the smallest bird that can be found in Trinidad, and is not found on Tobago. It is so tiny that it can easily be mistaken for a large bee as it feeds.

 

On Tobago one can observe five species of hummingbird with minimal effort. Battling with one another for prime territory on roadside shrubs are two familiar hummingbirds. One is the vociferous Copper-rumped Hummingbird with its emerald green throat and breast, signature coppery rump and white “boots.” It keeps an eye out for the similarly sized Ruby Topaz – an extravagantly coloured resident with a mysterious migration habit; each year they vanish for a few months between September and December. Males of the species are the only ones which display the ruby and topaz colours; furthermore, that flash of red and gold is shown only when he sees it fit to let his secret be known. Most times the male Ruby Topaz is wholly dark brown, even in bright sun! His crown and throat are covered in special feathers which are crystalline in structure, allowing light to be reflected and also refracted within the feather itself. Consequently, how he turns his feathers determines what colours we see.

A male Ruby Topaz demonstrates his ability to radically change the colour of his throat and crown.

 

An adult male Black-throated Mango in a shower of rain. Females and juveniles of this species look very different, with a bold black stripe bordered white from the throat down to the breast of the bird. 

Occasionally, these two species would also feed on flowering trees where they would encounter two of the larger species of hummingbird found on Tobago, the Black-throated Mango and White-necked Jacobin. The latter is notoriously aggressive and routinely dive-bombs intruders. Even the feisty Copper-rumped Hummingbird who never backs down from a confrontation must give way to a male White-necked Jacobin charging in at 50km/h.

Female hummingbirds are generally more placid in demeanour, and tend to avoid conflict while the males do the exact opposite. Male White-necked Jacobins would sometimes also target females of their own species, chasing them out of sight. These boldly patterned hummingbirds routinely posture to one another, sometimes hovering face to face, alternately fanning their bright white tails before rocketing off in sudden pursuit.

A male White-necked Jacobin hovers at a hummingbird feeder. They are some of the first birds to check out artificial feeders and ardently defend "their" feeder.

In the shadows of the understory, out of competition with the other hummingbirds, one member of a very special, aptly named family stays out of the limelight. The Rufous-breasted Hermit lives up to its name – and evolution has ensured that it does not ever need to fight for food. Its long and specially curved bill allows it to access nectar from certain flowers that are unreachable to other nectarivores.

These five species are all exciting to see but they can all be seen on Trinidad. There is however a mystical sixth species of hummingbird that can be found on Tobago and not Trinidad. Departing from the hustle and bustle, one needs to enter the realm of the White-tailed Sabrewing to have a chance to be blessed with a sighting of this magnificent bird. Making its home in the protected rainforest of the Main Ridge Forest Reserve, this relatively larger hummingbird was decimated by Hurricane Flora in 1963, but has since made a surprising comeback. White-tailed Sabrewings are mostly green overall, but in the dim glow of the rainforest, this green can morph into blue. Both males and females are bold, inquisitive birds and would not hesitate to investigate any intruder on their turf, humans included. Hikers on the trails in the rainforest are often approached by these birds; they hover briefly before zooming off into the forest.  

Many of us grew up thinking that a hummingbird was simply a singular entity that never warranted even a second glance, a single species that we learned about in primary school, emblazoned on our coat of arms and twenty dollar bill, an arbitrary buzzing creature that could be found among tropical flowers. As everywhere else in nature, there is much more than what is immediately apparent. Next time you see one of these amazing birds, grab a pair of binoculars and follow its supposed haphazard and frenetic flight and realize for yourself that there is a method to its madness: that a hummingbird will never visit the same flower twice in a single feeding session. Follow it to its favourite perch and see the deposits of pollen – its valuable payload ensuring the survival of organisms and helping to sustain life itself.

A female White-tailed Sabrewing perches on a mossy vine deep in Main Ridge Forest Reserve; found in Tobago and not in Trinidad.