Subject: Female Selaphorus Hummingbird, West Vancouver BC Dec 06-08 1997
Date: Dec 10 01:07:15 1997
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets

An old pal, Suann Hosie, gave me a call over the weekend: she's got what she
thinks is a female Rufous Hummingbird Selasphorus rufus among the usual
Anna's Hummingbirds Calypte anna at her feeder. It first showed up on
Saturday Dec 06 1997 and again yesterday, Monday Dec 08, videotaped by Suann
both times. Took a look at the videotape tonight, and though I'm not really
very good at hummer plumages beyond definitive males, for sure it's a
Selasphorus hummingbird, probably either Rufous or Allen's Hummingbird S.
sasin, an immature female on width of rectrices.

In one of two sequences there's conflict between this bird and a female
Anna's, and a freeze-frame shows a fairly large tail showing much rufous at
the bases of the outer rectrices, almost 50% of the feather, a mark that one
guide says is indicative of female Broad-tailed Hummingbird S. platycercus,
though two bands of fairly strong rufous-buff wash across the breast and
belly likely eliminates this species from contention. Any comment on this
would be welcome.

I understand from what little ID literature I have on the Rufous/Allen's ID
problem that separation of Rufous/Allen's females is categorically
impossible in field conditions, that differences and variations within each
species is greater than between the two species. Well, just to speculate,
there's the overwhelming likelihood that it's a wrong-way female Rufous, but
given the recent northward belt of warm air that's the possible proximate
vehicle of a number of southern birds north (Hooded Oriole, Xantus's
Hummingbird, Black Phoebe), Allen's Hummingbird can't be ruled out
completely. To establish the ID conclusively, someone skilled in
(hummingbird) biometrics would need to capture the bird and measure its
vital stats to the nearest hundredth millimeter.

Description from the videotape:

Ventral View:

Throat pale grey, lightly speckled with 'black' feathers which concentrated
slightly at base of throat;
Underparts grey-white with two roughly transverse bands of dull rufous-buff
wash across breast and belly;
Undertail coverts dull rufous-buff;
Outer rects basal half brighter rufous-buff, distal third bright white,
remainder black, giving appearance of mostly broad rufous-buff feathers with
a thin black stripe separating the rufous-buff from the large white tips;
tips wide and bluntly pointed.

Dorsal View:

Head and back unpatterned metallic emerald green;
Tail as above.

Bare Parts:

Eye dark;
Bill dark, straight, thin; approx 125% head-length;
Feet dark.

Clearly smaller than female Anna's, direct comparison.

There are two main sequences: in one, it hovers at the feeder offering an
unobstructed ventral view, holding its tail vertical and folded with only
the occasional split-second partial fanning. In the other, the smaller bird
aggressively bombs an astounded ( you can just see it saying 'what the
%#$$???') sitting Anna's female, the two sparred briefly, then as the Anna's
resumed its perch, the other sat briefly close and just below it before
buzzing off. During this encounter, the subject bird gives a mostly
unobstructed dorsal view of back and half the tail for a few split-seconds,
though a small branch obstructs view of the central rectrices and right side
of the tail.

There's just one unreservedly accepted winter record of a Selasphorus
hummingbird for BC (and none for Vancouver BC), an adult male Rufous
photographed at a feeder in Victoria in Week 1 January 1983. There's another
record, couched in pussyfoot language, to quote Campbell et al's Birds of
BC: "On 28 February 1988, an adult female Rufous Hummingbird died of cold
(UBC 14894) in North Vancouver. This appears to be the second valid winter
record." Given we know the date, cause and location of her death and she
constitutes a specimen record, one wonders what it would take to make her a
demise a definitely acceptable winter record, Mass for the Dead at Saint
Peter's? '-)

Actually, there's a third that for whatever reason didn't appear in Birds of
BC, an adult male I found poking around some flowering cherry trees in S.
Vancouver BC on February 27 1980, a couple of weeks early, a very cold early
evening just after rain, the low sun warming his rufous body tones until
they glowed, and his gorget flashing like a little laser in among the cold
pink blooms. Seeing him got me to wondering if Rufous actually overwinter
this far north, and certainly wondering how the heck he was surviving that
bitter late winter day.

If anyone has any ID comments on the above, please feel free to respond.

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net