After being re-discovered in 2022, the Santa Marta Sabrewing remains among the rarest bird species in the world (photo by John Mittermeier).

While the birds we see north of the border are well-studied, we continue to learn more about American birds all the time. But every few years it’s especially exciting to learn about a species that has rarely been seen, much less studied in any way. This week we can share news of the first video of a newly re-discovered hummingbird – the Santa Marta Sabrewing – that was lost to science from 1946 to 2010, but not found again until 2022! Since then, biologists have been studying the species as best they can, and now you can view some impressive video clips of this beautiful hummingbird species!

In addition to the photos and videos, an introductory description of the ecology of the Santa Marta Sabrewing has been posted as a preprint in bioRxiv, providing a glimpse into previously undocumented feeding, singing, and courtship behaviors. To date this super-rare, critically endangered species has been located at 5 locations along river courses in the isolated Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia.

The Santa Marta Sabrewing was lost to science for 64 years before being photographed once in 2010, only to become “lost” again before its re-discovery in 2022 by Yurgen Vega, one of the authors of the new study. Vega revealed, “The moment when I first found the Santa Marta Sabrewing was very emotional; I really couldn’t believe it. The adrenaline, the thrill of that moment of re-discovery, it’s hard to fully describe just how exciting it was.”

The re-discovery of the Santa Marta Sabrewing has been celebrated by ornithologists around the world, as well as by avid birders in Colombia and throughout the Western Hemisphere (all 363 different species of hummingbirds are found within the Western Hemisphere – the Americas). Realistically, before Vega’s documentation in 2022, there were only 3 documented sightings of the Santa Marta Sabrewing since it was first described in 1879, including only 1 record between 1946 and 2022 (in 2010).

The resulting field observations indicate the Santa Marta Sabrewing is highly associated with water courses in a very small area in the Santa Marta Mountains where males hold year-round territories and form leks where they sing and display for females. Biologists observed males in mid-elevation habitats (3,800 to 6,000 feet) for 16 consecutive months between July 2022 and October 2023, suggesting the species probably is not an elevational migrant as previously speculated. More information is needed to understand the species’ ecology so effective conservation actions can be designed in collaboration with the indigenous communities with which the species coexists in the area.

You can read an insightful science-level description of information learned to date about the Santa Marta Sabrewing at Distribution, ecology, and natural history of the recently rediscovered and critically endangered Santa Marta Sabrewing | bioRxiv

A Field Video!

Carol Turek from the Hummingbird Spot recently accompanied biologists with the American Bird Conservancy to photograph the super-rare species and provides a most insightful video to give you an impression of what the location looks like as she photographs the recently found species. Carol noted that the Santa Marta Sabrewing “is one of the most gorgeous birds I’ve ever seen!”

In her video, Carol also provides a short interview with the biologist who re-found the population location, Yurgen Vega, who described how he was shaking with excitement when he first photographed and took videos of the species in the remote location in northern Colombia where he was searching for a species of parakeet. View Carol’s interesting video at RARE BIRD SIGHTING: Santa Marta Sabrewing Hummingbird (youtube.com)

The American Bird Conservancy, one of the cooperating research groups to study the Santa Marta Sabrewing, provides a full description the project and 2 more video clips at New Research Reveals Habitat, Range, and Behavior of Recently Rediscovered Hummingbird Species - American Bird Conservancy (abcbirds.org)