Name That Hummingbird

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Adult Male… © Charles W. Melton – www.enature.com

Adult Female… © Charles W. Melton – www.enature.com

Adult Female with nestlings… www.wikipedia.org

Broad-Tailed Hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus)…

The Broad-tailed hummingbirds are medium sized – the mature adults are 3-3/4 inches to 4 inches in length.

Both the male and female Broad-Taileds have iridescent green backs, crowns, and white breasts. In flight their wings produce a distinct trilling noise which is a key identifier of this species.

The male Broad-Tailed Hummingbird has a brilliant red iridescent gorget (throat patch), and a mostly black tail.

The female Broad-Tailed Hummingbird is much duller with rust-colored, mottled flanks and underside. She has a white chin and throat with varying amounts of thin dark streaks. Her tail has rufous bases and a band of white on the tips of the outer tail feathers.

The juvenile Broad-Tailed Hummingbird are similar to the adult females in size and coloring. Young males develop a colored throat patch by their first breeding season.

The summer range of the Broad-tailed hummingbird extends across mountain forests and meadows throughout the Western United States, specifically the Great Basin region and southwards; the resident birds range from the cordilleran mountain areas of northern Mexico as far south as Guatemala. At summer’s end the northerly birds migrate and overwinter in the southern part of their range.

This species is somewhat vagrant, especially wintering birds, and is regularly seen in Guatemala and El Salvador where it is known to frequent essential shade coffee plantations.

Although this species is not considered endangered, and has adapted well to human-modified habitat, deforestation in their winter ranges has caused considerable concern. Amazingly, this has prompted “bird friendly” movements around the world. One of the most beneficial and widely recognized is the return to “shade-grown” coffee plantations that provide food and shelter to wintering hummingbirds.

Aside from the typical hummingbird diet of nectar and insects found at flower blossoms, the Broad-tailed hummingbird actively hunts insects in flight, and may also feed on foliage .

Nests are small cups of plant fibers woven together and bound to a branch with collected spider webs. The female lays two plain white eggs, that she alone will incubate for 16 days. Young broad-tailed hummingbirds fledge about 23 days after hatching.

Female Broad-tailed hummingbirds often nest in the same tree or bush year after year, a phenomenon known as philopatry (faithfulness to the previous home area). Incredibly, she will return to the same branch and even build a new nest right on top of previous ones.

Acknowledgements: www.wikipedia.com
& www.usgs.gov

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Video… “Broad-Tailed Hummingbird"

Thanks to mialdo for posting this video on www.YouTube.com

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Broad-Tailed Hummingbird… Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) Map  (This map is not available from the USGS, at present.)

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Broad-Tailed Hummingbird… Christmas Bird Count (CBC) Map  (This map is not available from the USGS, at present.)