Hummingbird & Pink Flamingo Heliconia
During my travels to Costa Rica, I have collected sketches and photographs over the years of tropical hummingbirds and heliconias. My favorite heliconia is the pink flamingo heliconia, or Heliconia chartacea. It’s a pendulum heliconia, which means the flower droops over the stalk. This is in the same family as the bird of paradise, which is considered an erect heliconia—the flower is upright.
In researching heliconias, I found out they are pollinated by hummingbirds. For this painting, I decided to do a simple composition of a crowned woodnymph, Thalurania colombica, resting on one of the bracts on the flower. To identify the hummingbird, I went to a field guide on the birds of Panama, and then cross-referenced ...
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