Bee Hummingbird - Female - Mellisuga helenae

This is the world's smallest bird, photographed near the Bermejas Faunal Reserve, Cuba.

Just west of the Reserve's gate (i.e. towards Playa Giron) a gravel lane from the south joins the main road at a T-junction. When the flowers are in bloom Bee Hummingbirds arrive in the late afternoon to feed in the trees along the lane.

We dropped by at 4:30pm and after a 15 minute wait we spotted a female high in the foliage. There were approximately 20 Cuban Emeralds feeding along the same 150 metre stretch of trees and they picked on the Bee fairly vigorously; it would often disappear for periods of time. As the afternoon progressed another female Bee Hummingbird showed up, then a shining male and another shining male. Harassed less frequently by the Emeralds as time passed, the Bees began to work their way lower down the trees until they floated around the flowers at eye level, close enough to touch. It was a magical moment with a tiny, tiny bird (only a little over half the size of Ruby-throated Hummingbird).

A full report of our trip to Cuba is available here:

www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=1391

Taken in: Cuba / Matanzas (show map)

Taken on: April 13, 2008

Tags:

Cuba

birds

birdwatching

Hummingbird

Bee Hummingbird

Bermejas

Giron

Endemic

World's smallest bird

Cuban

Caribbean

Wildlife

Nature

Tiny

Smallest

Zunzuncito

Pajaro Mosca

Trovador

Mellisuga helenae

female

Eco-tourism

Paul Jones

Canon

Camera

300mm

300f4

Lens

Flying

Flight

Aves

Kolibri

Colibrí

Paul B Jones « less

Sets appears in: • Cuba - April 2008

Groups appears in: • Hummingbirds • Linda Cuba :) more » • Hummingbirds Around the World • Caribbean Birdwatchers • Birds from beautiful Cuba • Birds Photos - Check out the new discussions! • Neotropical Birds • Flickr Bird Brigade « less

Camera: Canon EOS 30D, f/7.1, 1/800 sec, 300mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 30D
Aperture:	f/7.1
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Focal Length:	300mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	-1/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	QuickTime 7.6.3
Show full info

Stats: 4,721 views / 6 comments

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder