The tailless tanager

In Tandayapa Valley, Ecuador, in 2013 we saw a lemon-rumped tanager that was missing all of its tail feathers. We wondered how a bird could survive with no tail - could it really fly well enough to escape predators?

Last month I was back in Tandayapa and the tailless tanager was still there, apparently doing just fine.

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Will the tailless tanager still be there in 2015? Join me in Ecuador and find out for yourself!

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Splish, splash ...

Glossy flowerpiercer

Beside a trail at Yanacocha Reserve, on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano northwest of Quito, was a little pool of water, no more than a foot wide and a couple inches deep. It didn't look like much, but it was pretty popular with the local birds. I sat for a while, and within a few minutes a glossy flowerpiercer approached the pool, waded in, and had a bath.

Half an hour later, a masked flowerpiercer did the same.

Masked flowerpiercer

Over the next hour or so, two species of hummingbirds and an antpitta dropped by as well. The hummingbirds jumped right in, but the antpitta was apparently a little more shy about bathing in public.

Rainbow-bearded thornbill

Tyrian metal-tail

Rufous antpitta

El condor pasa

Four photographers are aiming our long lenses at a carunculated caracara, one of the signature birds of the treeless Andean paramo. It's a big raptor, about the size of the red-tailed hawks that we know from California. As we approach, we're surprised to learn that, rather than hunting from the air, it spends much of its time scratching in the dirt like a chicken, looking for worms, insects, lizards, and other small prey.

Suddenly we hear Jorge Cruz, our host and guide, shouting, "Condor! Condor! Condor!"

Four lenses swing around in unison. Shutters click furiously as the world's largest flying bird approaches, apparently curious about the latest visitors to its territory. The giant vulture soars over our heads, turns, and in less than a minute disappears over the horizon. I guess we weren't as interesting to the bird as it was to us.

Condors are vultures, and we've all seen plenty of vultures of various species. So you might think that seeing a condor would be much like seeing any other vulture. You might think that, but only until you actually see one. However you think about them – biologically, culturally, spiritually – condors are different.

The condor has been a part of indigenous Andean art and mythology for thousands of years, and is considered to be the ruler of the physical world. (The word condor is derived from the Quechua kuntur.) In modern times, every country the condor inhabits has adopted it as a national symbol, representing strength and power.

Physically, condors have an ancient, dinosaur-like appearance, which is only exaggerated by their huge size and the vastness of their mountain habitat. Watching a condor, it's easy to step back in time and imagine it competing with saber-toothed cats for the remains of a giant sloth. Condors soar with no apparent effort, their ten-foot wingspan carrying them up to 120 miles in a day as they search for food.

After our spiritual experience, we complain about the flat light, the featureless gray sky, and the difficulty of finding the proper exposure for the underside of a black bird. We're photographers, after all. But later, over a dinner of fresh trout, local potatoes, and beans that were picked that morning on the slopes of Mount Antisana, we all agree that photographing an Andean condor was one of the highlights of our time in Ecuador.


Join me in Ecuador for a chance to photograph a condor yourself!

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Shining sunbeams

If you've spent any time watching a hummingbird feeder, you know how aggressive those little birds can be. In my own backyard, I've watched as one or more Anna's hummingbirds tries to monopolize the feeder, forcing other birds to settle for a quick sip before they're chased away.

But nothing prepared me for Ecuador's shining sunbeam, Aglaeactis cupripennis, the most aggressive hummer I've ever seen. Larger than most, it chased away every other species that tried to approach. This got to be a little annoying, from a photographer's perspective – at the end of a full day of shooting, 70% of my photos were of sunbeams, with the rest divided between 4 other species. (Eventually I learned a couple of tricks to increase my chances with the smaller species.)

And when two sunbeams compete for the same feeder or flower, watch out. They don't just try to bluff or intimidate, they actually make contact – chest bumping, hitting with their wings, and grabbing tail feathers in their claws. The sound of their wings as they collided was surprisingly loud, and made me wonder how often a bird is injured in these competitions.

Sometimes both birds would tumble toward the ground, recovering at the last second to fly in opposite directions, only to return for a rematch. It's a wonder any of them was able to feed, but somehow they managed.

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Aerial acrobats

Black-tailed trainbearer, Lesbia victoriae

With more than 300 species worldwide, hummingbirds come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. One thing they all have in common is their ability to amaze us with their acrobatic skills. A few of them, such as the trainbearers and racket-tails, have extra-long tails that act as counterweights, allowing them to make some remarkably fast mid-air twists and turns.

Booted racket-tail, Ocreatus underwoodii

Sparkling violet-ear, Colibri coruscans

Tyrian metal-tail, Metallura tyrianthina

Purple-bibbed white-tip, Urosticte benjamini

Shining sunbeams, Aglaeactis cupripennis

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Evolution

One thing you can say about natural selection is that it just doesn't care. It doesn't care about beauty, elegance, or simplicity of design – those are all things that we humans see in nature. As far as biology is concerned, if something works, it works. Never mind how it looks.

Take aquatic birds, for example. When you see a bird preening its feathers, it's not trying to make itself pretty – again, that's just our interpretation. What it's really doing is spreading oil over its feathers, keeping them clean and water-resistant. All birds have oil glands, and the more time a bird spends around water, the more oil it needs.

As you might expect, species that spend most of their lives on or under water – grebes and loons, for example – have evolved super-sized oil glands to keep them from getting waterlogged.

And then there are the cormorants.

When some distant ancestor of modern cormorants first ventured into the water in search of food, it must have been soaked when it climbed back onto land. So it spread its wings out to dry in the sun. That bird survived and passed its behavior along to its descendants, who never evolved the extra-large oil glands of other aquatic birds. Cormorants – which eat fish and nothing else – can only stay in the water for short periods of time. Then they have to get out and dry off before getting wet again.

Does this make sense? Would you buy a boat that wasn't waterproof, that had to be hauled out to dry every hour or so? Have cormorants really evolved the most beautiful or elegant solution to the problem of wet feathers?

Natural selection doesn't care.