Hello, Birders. The "Black-chinned Hummingbird" that's been erratic at my Lafayette, Boulder County, honeysuckles (they belong to the neighbors, actually) has, with additional observation, transmogrified into an apparent adult female Ruby-throated Hummingbird. ¡Cuidado!--this is a tricky ID. No photos have been taken (although I'm working on that), and I have not gotten a good look at the bird perched. Thus, I have not been able to assess the shape and structure of the primaries. But everything else looks good, including the relatively bright green crown, relatively prominent post-ocular spot, relatively strong contrast between the crown and the face, relatively clean/pure-white throat, relatively bright green back, and--especially--the complete absence of tail-wagging while foraging. The bird holds its tail stiff, angled just a little bit below the plane of the body. Check out what Van Remsen has to say about tail-wagging as a character for separating Black-chinned and Ruby-throated: http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~remsen/HUMNETf/BcHuID.html In observations of ~20 out of ~20 Black-chins, there was continual tail-pumping; in ~10,000 out of ~10,000 observations of Ruby-throats, there were no instances of tail-pumping. Sounds like an ironclad field mark, eh?...Well...Hummingbird expert Donna Dittmann cautioned me yesterday that this mark may be ironclad only during the winter months and with immatures year-round. So let's not get *too* excited. Still, I think it's suggestive--and I'm still hoping for a good study of the bird perched. One last thing: Bill length. The bill does not seem relatively short (a mark for Ruby-throated, in comparison with Black-chinned), but I note that this bird is an adult female. Their bills are longer than those of the males we typically pay attention to. So I don't think this mark is especially relevant; it's a wash. Well, for now, let's call it an apparent Ruby-throated Hummingbird. If it gets confirmed as such, come on by. The best views are from my kitchen window, and we have a huge pile of dishes to wash while you're waiting for the bird to show up. Meanwhile, a few hundred feet away, over at Greenlee Preserve, the baby Pied-billed Grebes just fledged, and they are making a terrible racket. Why don't the snapping turtles get *them*? (They dispatched with the baby American Coots in no time at all.) Other summer stuff out there: a few flightless Western Grebes still on Waneka Lake, a Gray Catbird hanging on, a few Chimney Swifts, Great Horned Owls, and lots of Bullock's Orioles. Yesterday evening, Hannah and Andrew and I had a great encounter with a mean ole bunny-eating bull snake. Ted Floyd [email protected] Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado -------------------------------
Ted Floyd Editor, Birding ------------------------------- Please support the American Birding Association: Click on http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=884482 to search the internet. Every search provides support to the ABA's programs in Education, Conservation, and Publications. Please visit the website of the American Birding Association: http://www.aba.org _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® has ever-growing storage! Don’t worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage_062009 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
