There are over 360 species of hummingbird in the world. They live only in the Americas, from Alaska to Patagonia, and most of them weigh less than a ten pence coin. Their hearts beat up to 1,200 times per minute. Their wings move so fast they hum.
Some are common. The ruby-throated hummingbird turns up in gardens across eastern North America every summer. Others are incredibly rare. The blue-throated hillstar was only discovered in 2017 on a single mountaintop in Bolivia.
Photographing them is difficult. They do not sit still for long. They hover, they dart, they vanish. Getting a decent photograph usually means standing very quietly near a flower they like and waiting. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes they never come.
The best places to find them are cloud forests in Central and South America where dozens of species overlap. Ecuador alone has over 130 species. Costa Rica has over 50. Even a garden feeder in the right spot can attract four or five different species in a single morning.