Return of Bird of the Week: Speckled Hummingbird

Not all hummingbirds are spectacular. Some are a little drab. The Speckled Hummingbird probably goes on that list. But this is still a handsome bird. The Speckled Hummingbird’s range extends from Columbia to northern Chile in western South America, and it is pretty common across all of that range.  Even for a neotropical species, the Speckled Hummingbird is poorly studied. Presently, it’s placed as the single member of the genus Adelomyia, with some seven (or maybe nine) subspecies, but the systematics are, as they say, doubtful. This species nests under the large ferns that grown under the tropical forest canopy in…