White-booted Racket-Tail captured by Z 9 / Z180-600 w/2x ProfotoA10s
Our lodge is just a mile and a half from the equator, at 6000 feet up in the cloud rainforest, is a slice of heaven long on my list to bring my camera. We’ve been here for almost a week now and have seen and photographed seventy new species of birds. It’s the White-booted Racket-Tail that, in part, brought this region of the natural world to my attention. Did you catch that tail? Ain’t that cool! Here’s the wicked thing, from tip to tip, it’s only five inches! It’s dang small, one of the smallest here. Of the seventeen species of “hummers” I’ve photographed so far (there are 135 after all), the biggest is about the size of a banana. As I write this, we have a Brown Violetear flying in and out of our room, chasing nats to eat. My only fear is that I don’t have enough storage space for all my photos, I only brought 8TB. It’s been just grand, and I can easily say now, exquisite Ecuador!