Subject: [Tweeters] Black-chinned Hummingbird near Tacoma
Date: Jun 30 20:22:00 2005
From: Ruth and/or Patrick Sullivan - godwit at worldnet.att.net
Hello Tweets,
This evening while enjoying recent fledgling Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadees coming to our backyard patio railing for crushed peanuts we observed a female Black-chinned Hummingbird,which made a very brief visit to one of hummingbird feeders. The bird was observed at 6:30pm,as we looked out our kitchen window and displayed the constantly wagging tail behavior,as well as a very white throat and underparts,as well as extensive white areas in the outer tail primaries,especially visible on the 4th and 5th retrice. The sides were much paler and cleaner than female Anna's Hummingbird,which really showed well in the fading sunlight. During the brief sighting the bird remained unvocal,but soon flew to the west and seemed very "spooky" and wary,which could be the result of having larger resident Anna's Hummingbirds in our yard. This bird was a real surprise for us in our yard and for Pierce Co.,especially for the time of year so perhaps some dispersal is apparent and the cause of this sighting. This represents the 2nd Pierce Co. record that we are aware of with the other county record occurring on the 15th of July,2001 by Charlie Wright and published in the Fall 2001 issue of WA Birder Volume 9 #3. We weren't able to obtain any photos of the bird and we highly suspect the bird may not come back to our yard,but it is possible and we'll be ready if it does.
Subsequently, we have had many nesting species in our yard within the past 2 weeks,so our feeders and birdbaths are very busy and we just placed our mister out for the hummingbirds. As of recently we had fledglings of the following species in our yard:
Anna's Hummingbird
Steller's Jay
Black-capped Chickadee
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Bewick's Wren
Bushtit
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Am.Robin
Dark-eyed"Oregon"Junco
Spotted Towhee
House Finch
We also have nesting Violet-green Swallows,but have yet to see the young and typically they leave the nestbox at the very last minute before being detected. We also have an immature male and female Rufous Hummingbird coming to our feeders sporadically,which is quite unusual for us during the summer given the species is usually absent from our yard during the summer. We also have a pair of Band-tailed Pigeons that come readily to our feeders. In addition to our nesting birds we also had a few fly-over species encountered today including a Purple Martin and an immature Bald Eagle.
Good yard birding,
Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit at worldnet.att.net