Hi all,
With certainty, there is a _Selasphorus_ hummingbird making regular (every 15
min.) visits to several feeders on the east side of the house here. I
haven't seen the rectrix shapes satisfactorily, and to hazard a guess as to
whether this bird is a Rufous or an Allen's (even if I had seen them well)
would just be to guess. But there's no aspect of this bird that suggests
Broad-tailed. The bird has a few red spots in the gorget, and I think it's
probably a young male. The likelihood is that it's a Rufous Hummingbird.
There is a second bird that I've seen three times now. It appears smaller
than the other and has been chased off by it twice (leading me to move one of
the feeders around to the other side of the house, in hopes that both will
stay). This bird seems shorter-tailed and shorter-billed, with
proportionately long wings that fall about a millimeter short of the tail's
tip. The bird has much less cinnamon on the sides and in the tail and has a
paler overall appearance. This is the bird I saw first at the smallest,
lowest feeder and thought to be a Calliope. Brief subsequent viewings
didn't provide much in the way of good studies, but the bird has dusky lores,
which are wrong for Calliope, and it doesn't quite have that pot-bellied look
typical of the species. I kept a vigil today by the feeders but did not get
a photograph of this bird. I'm thinking now that this bird might be just an
imm. female _Selasphorus_. I'll post more when I'm able to get better
studies of the second bird! Banders are welcome here any time!
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
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