By Juan Bahamón, Colombian photographer and Retorno Photo Tours client

Some hummingbirds make you work hard to photograph them. The Fiery Topaz makes you earn every single image.



This spectacular bird has a wide distribution across the northwestern Amazon Basin, yet it is remarkably difficult to find. It inhabits the tangled, dark, dense understory of the tropical rainforest, where light is scarce, rain falls in torrents, mosquitoes are carnivorous, and reliable sightings are few and far between.

My search took me to the Ecuadorian Amazon, near Misahuallí. After nearly seven hours of travel from home—the final stages by motorboat and canoe along tributaries of the Napo River—I arrived at an old turtle research station. The turtles are gone, but their breeding ponds remain. Filled with dark, stagnant water, they are perfect breeding grounds for clouds of tiny mosquitoes.

Fortunately, the mosquitoes are someone else’s dinner. In the late afternoon, they become a true delicacy for the Fiery Topaz.

Adriana Casariego, a Uruguayan entrepreneur, understood this daily ritual perfectly. She built an observation tower beside the ponds and strategically placed a small bamboo perch at eye level, with a wonderfully clean and uncluttered rainforest background.

Then comes the difficult part: waiting.

The window of opportunity lasts perhaps twenty minutes, around 5:30 in the afternoon. Just as the rainforest begins to lose its light, the Fiery Topaz appears to hunt mosquitoes. My first afternoon produced nothing. On the second, a male suddenly arrived—resplendent and hungry.

I managed to take around 300 photographs. This one is my favorite.

What captivated me most was the combination of colors: a fiery red body, glowing like burning charcoal; a shimmering green-and-yellow gorget; and a jet-black hood and bib. Its long, slender tail feathers intertwined like funeral ribbons.

It felt as though a tiny, iridescent drone were hovering through the misty green of the Amazon.

Seven hours of travel. Motorboats and canoes. Jungle humidity. Mosquitoes. An entire day without a single photograph. And finally, twenty minutes of opportunity.

Would I do it again? Of course I would.

Thank you for looking. Your comments are always welcome.