Tweets,

We actually witnessed for the first time also last week Rufous hummingbirds
copulating. We had a live pine Christmas tree last year and it is still on
the back deck. The female was in this tree, just ten feet from the kitchen
table where we were sitting. The male did his to and fro thing that you
wrote about and then dived into the tree at her. They then took off rather
quickly and just about hit the plexiglass on that section of the deck.
Luckily there is a two inch gap there and they didn't hit it.

Catherine


At 03:28 PM 5/11/96 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi tweets,
>
>I was out photographing wildflowers today when I witnessed a courting male
>Rufous hummer, dive at a female, practically knock her to the ground,
>apparently crashing the both of them into the fairly dense stems of the
>willow bush. At this point there was a change in tune and the male seemed
>to wheel to and fro within the tight cluster of willow stems. I was amazed
>it was able to manoeuvre at all.
>
>The change in tune I believe, coincided with copulation. The male made
>sounds that I can only describe as somewhat like the humming rhythmic sounds
>that a starving lawnmower with a superfast idle might make. I had heard
>these sounds before and questioned whether or not they were related to
>copulation. At this point I am convinced.
>
>This would be the first time I have witnessed hummingbird copulation, albeit
>somewhat indirectly since it was so hard to see what was happening exactly.
>The whole affair took a surprising amount of time, relative to the usual
>high-speed action of hummers. I estimate 10 seconds of 'humming' at ground
>level. In this amount of time, the hummer would have had 200 heartbeats.
>Ok maybe in this case it may have reached 400!
>Cheers,
>
> Don Cecile
> Port Alberni, BC, CANADA V9Y 6Z5
> eMAIL: dcecile at cln.etc.bc.ca
>
>
>
>
Catherine Fryer
Victoria, BC
cfryer at pacificcoast.net