Video Marvelousness

To keep you patient folks going while the Scribbler does something profitable, here’s a no-frills video of a strange Peruvian hummingbird. It’s called the marvelous spatuletail, and to find out why you really do need to see the bird in action.

I’ve always loved when strange words find themselves perfectly applied in naming outlandish birds. “Marvelous” here is just the ticket, as i think you’ll agree.

It’s interesting how the tropics seemed to knock all those Victorian explorers for a loop and made them reach into the ornate recesses of their vocabularies to find the right descriptor. Witness such Neotropical gems as the resplendant quetzal, striped woodhaunter, spangle-cheeked tanager, and violaceous euphonia (which does not resemble a tuba, even remotely).

Thanks to rdp1710, the veteran naturalist, for the tip and the American Bird Conservancy for hosting the video.

(And I hope you are all watching Planet Earth, which seems to have spent a million dollars an episode on making nature shows without wasting a cent of it. Sharks eating sea lions in midair in a single bite? A penguin facing up to an attacking fur seal? Sunflower stars eating poor helpless brittlestars by the mouthful? Baby snow geese struggling in the jaws of a cute but remorseless arctic fox? All this and more.)

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