Subject: Rufous Hummingbird again today
Date: Jun 10 20:44:55 2001
From: Cliff Drake - cliffdrake at qwest.net


Hi Gang

I had a RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD at my feeder and yard again today. I saw it at the feeder at 9AM, 5:35, 5:40, 6:20 and 7:50PM, ( I quit watching at 8 ) and in the plum tree several times in the evening. Other than to say it's not an adult male, I don't think, I don't know what age or sex I'm looking at. It has a small red spot on a white throat (a very bright red at times) with some small spotting on the rest of the throat. It has a white breast, but while it was preening its breast looked mottled. It had a rufous flanks viewed from the front. Its back showed considerable rufous on the rump and quite a bit on the back, to the sides. Its central back looked like it had some rufous spotting and the back of its head had darker, almost rufous coloring on the crown. I was able to get a pretty good look at the spread tail, it looked just like Sibley says it should, black, white and green with, of course, rufous patches. I'm not expert enough to describe the plumage shapes of the tail.

Yesterday, in general views, I saw more green than rufous but today I saw more rufous than green, but I had much better views today.

One thing I saw this evening was its tongue, I thought that was pretty cool. At first it looked liked its bill was expanding and contracting, then I realized I was seeing its tongue.

So is this a female? a juv male? I don't know, but it makes a nice break from the ten zillion house finches in my back yard.

Cliff Drake
Ballard Seattle, WA
cliffdrake at qwest.net