Located in the isolated Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia, little has been known about the Santa Marta Sabrewing as it was lost to science for 64 years before being photographed once in 2010, only to become lost again before its rediscovery in 2022 by Yurgen Vega. "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 rediscovery, it's hard to fully describe just how exciting it was," said Vega.
Just seven months after Yurgen's rediscovery, professors Carlos Esteban Lara and Andrés M. Cuervo of Universidad Nacional de Colombia independently found other individuals in additional locations within the same area. The species is listed as a top 10 most wanted lost bird species by the Search for Lost Birds, a collaboration between ABC, Re:wild, and BirdLife International. When these birds were found again, ABC and other collaborators immediately joined to help monitor and study this extremely rare population.
Read more about this bird and what a new study has revealed: abcbirds.org/news/santa-marta....
Videos: ‪@HummingbirdSpot‬ by Carole Turek