Tawny-bellied Hermit

The tawny-bellied hermit is about 14 cm (5.5 in) long and weighs 5 to 7 g (0.18 to 0.25 oz). This medium-sized hermit's upperparts are olive green, and males have reddish-orange uppertail coverts. The central tail feathers of both sexes are long and white and the rest are dark with bright orange ends. The nominate subspecies has an orange throat, belly, and undertail coverts; the throat and chest of P. s. columbianus are dark brown. Both sexes have an obviously decurved bill with the female's being more curved than the male's.

The nominate subspecies of tawny-bellied hermit is found in the Western Andes of Colombia (including the valleys of the Cauca and Patía rivers) and locally south on the western Andean slope through Ecuador to western Loja Province. P. s. columbianus is found in the Central and Eastern Andes of Colombia (including the southern Magdalena River valley) and south on the Andes' eastern slope through Ecuador to northern Peru's San Martín Department. It principally inhabits the understory of humid montane forest but is also found at forest edges and in dense secondary forest. In elevation it mostly ranges between 1,000 and 2,300 m (3,300 and 7,500 ft) though it has been recorded as low as 750 m (2,500 ft) and as high as 3,100 m (10,000 ft). The white-whiskered hermit (P. yaruqui) replaces it in similar habitats below 1,000 m (3,300 ft).

The tawny-bellied hermit is a "trap-line" feeder like other hermit hummingbirds, visiting a circuit of a wide variety of flowering plants for nectar. It also consumes small arthropods.