Meet the Woman on a Mission to Photograph Every Species of Hummingbird in the World

Seven years in the past, anesthesiologist and budding photographer Carole Turek launched into a seemingly unattainable quest to {photograph} each hummingbird species on this planet—all 366 of them. Now 75 years outdated and coming into retirement, Turek has simply 90 species left on her listing. And what started as a private obsession has garnered the eye and reward of researchers, conservationists, and legions of followers by way of her fashionable YouTube channel and website, Hummingbird Spot.

Turek developed an early affection for birds as a baby, sparked by the chatter of pet parakeets that crammed her household’s residence within the Philadelphia suburbs. However it wasn’t till she was in her 30s, after finishing an anesthesiology residency and shifting to Colorado, that wild birds grabbed her consideration. One afternoon, whereas Turek dined on a restaurant patio, a flash of iridescence caught her eye. Sipping from the blossoms of a dangling flower basket was Turek’s first hummingbird—presumably a Broad-tailed, however she lacked the experience to determine it then. She watched, spellbound, till the fowl zipped out of sight. “I used to be fascinated with it,” she says.

After that preliminary encounter, Turek was hooked. When she moved to Los Angeles in 1987, she was delighted to seek out hummingbirds visiting the vegetation on her property and determined to hold a feeder of her personal. Anna’s and Allen’s Hummingbirds had been two of essentially the most frequent diners, shining good shades of inexperienced, pink, and orange. As extra hummers arrived, she put out extra meals. “I hung one other feeder, and that was 4, then six, till I had hummingbird feeders everywhere in the home,” she says. “I might sit by the window and watch for them to come back.”

Issues actually obtained out of hand when she ultimately settled into her residence in Studio Metropolis. There, her flowers and 16 feeders missed Laurel Canyon from a third-floor balcony, providing an irresistible buffet for each passing hummer. Relying on the season, she went by way of 50 to 90 kilos of sugar per week to maintain the feeders brimming with do-it-yourself nectar, serving tons of of hungry birds every day.

Impressed by Cornell Lab of Ornithology fowl cams and the social media accounts of wildlife photographers, Turek determined to share her spirited company with the world. Shortly thereafter, Hummingbird Spot was born. She launched the YouTube channel in 2016 to livestream her Studio Metropolis feeders and bought knowledgeable digicam, regardless of having no formal pictures background. Every day, she practiced photographing the hummers on her balcony, studying to seize crisp visuals regardless of their fixed motion. At first, “I solely took footage on the automated setting,” she says. “I didn’t know something about ISO or aperture. I grew up within the period of little field cameras that you simply purchased at 7-Eleven.” 

After snapping tens of hundreds of images of her common guests, Turek craved a brand new problem. A visit to Arizona added just a few species to her rising portfolio, however with solely 15 kinds of hummingbirds recurrently present in america, she quickly realized she’d have to move additional south to Central and South America to seize the household’s full spectrum of magnificence and conduct.

A Partnership Takes Flight

In the summertime of 2018, Turek made her first-ever worldwide journey to Honduras, the place a tour firm known as Beaks and Peaks marketed adventures for hummingbird photographers. On the 10-day journey, she was thrilled to come across a bounty of latest hummers: a shimmering Honduran Emerald flitting by way of forest scrub, a dusky Azure-crowned Hummingbird cloaked in delicate iridescence, and a Glowing-tailed Hummingbird with a gleaming sapphire throat, amongst others. However crucial introduction was to William Orellana, the photographer who guided her by way of the nation.

A dialog concerning the Marvelous Spatuletail, the topic of a David Attenborough-narrated video that Turek had watched “100 instances over,” modified every part. Turek wished to see the tiny fowl with two particularly prolonged tail feathers ending in disc-like “rackets,” and Orellana knew of a information in Peru who might assist. However Turek, then in her late 60s, was hesitant to journey by herself with folks that she didn’t know. She felt secure and comfy with Orellana—a lot in order that she requested him to accompany her. He readily agreed and have become her common journey companion, and is now a Hummingbird Spot worker in addition to the proprietor of Beaks and Peaks. “I felt like I used to be coaching all my life to obtain that request from her,” Orellana says.

To search out the Marvelous Spatuletail, Turek and Orellana hiked by way of Peru’s Huembo Reserve, stopping in entrance of 5 nectar feeders recognized to draw the species. They had been ready to return the following day, and the day after that, if the fowl didn’t present. However it appeared after solely three minutes, a blaze of white, inexperienced, blue, and bronze. “All I might hear was David Attenborough’s voice in my head. I began crying,” Turek says. “Someplace on that journey, it clicked: That is what I need to do. I need to {photograph} all of them.”

Turek, who wears wide-frame glasses and an ever-present, infectious smile, has been documenting her adventures on the Hummingbird Spot channel and web site ever since. Her images and movies introduce new audiences, significantly these in america, to the varied world of hummingbirds. Up to now, she has tracked down 276 species, together with uncommon and elusive hummers which have required her and Orellana to trek by way of distant tropical jungles and climb cloud-veiled mountains.

Lengthy Roads to Uncommon Finds

A few of Turek’s most spectacular observations have come from Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, the place hummingbirds and different wildlife are shedding habitat to agricultural growth, logging, and mining. She and Orellana traversed the mountains in 2020 to seek out the uncommon, critically endangered Blue-bearded Helmetcrest that may solely be discovered at elevations above 10,000 toes. The group endured frigid nights and a punishing ascent, however Turek’s enthusiasm defied exhaustion. On the summit, they had been rewarded by a male helmetcrest that lingered for hours—a sight witnessed by possibly 100 individuals alive right this moment and photographed by even fewer. “Generally it takes a variety of work and analysis to seek out the hummingbirds, but it surely’s so gratifying once we do,” Orellana says.

Turek returned to the mountain vary in 2024 to seek out and movie the Santa Marta Sabrewing, a blinding hummingbird as soon as feared extinct. Previous to its rediscovery in 2022, the sabrewing was listed as one of many high 10 most-wanted species by the Search for Lost Birds, a collaboration between American Chicken Conservancy (ABC), Re:wild, and BirdLife Worldwide that calls on the worldwide birding group to hunt out birds with no documented sightings for not less than a decade. With the assistance of ABC’s native companions, Turek captured among the first high-quality video footage of the species and used her on-line platform to highlight native conservation and analysis efforts.

“She’s elevating consciousness of the truth that there are every kind of hummingbirds on the market, and that a variety of them face important challenges,” says Alice Madar, govt director of the Worldwide Hummingbird Society, of which Turek serves on the board of administrators. “These hummingbirds are everywhere in the Americas, and so they need assistance.”

Whereas photographing the Santa Marta Sabrewing, Turek realized of one other species on the misplaced birds listing—one awaiting rediscovery. John Mittermeier, director of the Seek for Misplaced Birds at ABC, and Dan Lebbin, ABC’s Vice President of Threatened Species, had been a part of the group that joined Turek in Colombia. Upon discovering her formidable quest to {photograph} each hummingbird species, they informed her concerning the Vilcabamba Inca, a fowl misplaced to science for nearly six many years.

Turek was up for the problem. In August 2024, flanked by dense vegetation and murky mist within the Vilcabamba Mountains of south-central Peru, she and Orellana captured the first-ever pictures and video of the Vilcabamba Inca. Their encounter with the massive, straight-billed hummingbird was fleeting—but it surely was sufficient to substantiate the fowl’s standing as rediscovered.

After retiring final December, Turek returned to her childhood residence in Pennsylvania. She needed to take down her Studio Metropolis feeders, however Hummingbird Spot’s fowl cam choices have expanded, streaming different feeders in California, Peru, and Ecuador. Turek is difficult at work attracting Ruby-throated Hummingbirds—the one U.S. species that breeds east of the Mississippi—to the suburbs, and her mission to {photograph} each hummingbird species has turn into a full-time undertaking. Turek has no goal finish date, however with upcoming journeys deliberate to Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Peru, she expects to succeed in 300 species in 2026.

“That is what retains me younger. It retains me alive, and it retains me in form,” Turek says. “I hope that I’m inspiring some older individuals to stand up off the sofa and chase their desires.”