Green-fronted Lancebill & Sparkling Violetear

Since it seems to be hummingbird week, I thought i'd post one from last Sept. in Ecuador that I feel is one of the most unique that I have probably. The Green-fronted Lancebill is on the upper right, and the Sparkling Violetear on the lower left of the image. It is unique in two regards:

1) Not many hummingbird shots are ever posted/taken that show in-flight interaction between two birds. I worked hard my last day in Ecuador to get this behaviour. I plan to work extra hard this coming November when I go back for 9 days to capture many more such interactions.

2) The interaction has a Green-fronted Lancebill in it. There was only 1 single Lancebill coming to the Tandayapa feeders, and they are one of the least prevalent hummingbirds, with generally only 1 or 2 in attendance, and then only every 30-60 minutes. So the fact that I actually got in-flight interaction that included this hummingbird is special to me.

Back when I took this, and all of my other hummingbird images I was basically learning on the fly, with no backgrounds so I had to make due with natural ones, and only 4 flashes, so getting light on the background was often difficult. I hope to be more educated when I go back so that I can come back with better representations of the bird life of NW Ecuador in the Choco endemic regions of the cloud forests of the Andes.

Canon Eos20D, 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @180mm, f/18, 4 flashes on manual at 1/16th power I believe, ISO400.

Cheers,