[texbirds] Radio-tagged Hummingbird in Corpus Christi

From: Clay Taylor <Clay.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:47:50 -0500
Hi all -
Well, we are awaiting the arrival of the front later today here in Corpus 
Christi, but birds are already running ahead of it.   Dane Ferrell called me 
from the Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch to say that an adult Zone-tailed Hawk was 
heading toward my house.  I grabbed the 12x50 EL SVs and went to the side door 
to scan for the Zonie.

I did not see it, but a hummer at one of the feeders in the side lot caught my 
attention - I glassed it and yelled "Whoa!"    There was a long silver antenna 
trailing out from the bird as it hovered at the feeder!!!   I looked again to 
make sure that was really what I was seeing, then bolted into the house to grab 
the spotting scope and camera.

I walked down to within 30 feet of the feeder, using a big sage bush as partial 
cover, looking for the hummer.    After a few minutes I spotted it perched in a 
nearby bush.   Yep, it had an antenna!

I took a bunch of photos as it preened and scratched its head, and then 
switched to the Olympus to take some video footage.   It then flew to the 
feeder and nectared, and I saw that the right leg was banded - a silver band.   
It then flew around the yard and I lost sight of it.

I scuttled back into the house and downloaded the images.  As I was waiting for 
the download to finish, I realized that I had not even tried to ID it as to 
species!    The images showed a fairly short-billed immature / female hummer, 
the chest was more gray than white, and the wings were slightly shorter than 
the tail.   It never really struck me as being Ruby-throated / Black-chinned, 
but I am pretty lousy at snap IDs of non-adult male hummers.   Maybe a 
Broad-tailed?

I looked closely at the digiscoped images - when it scratched its head with the 
right foot, I was picking up band numbers!   Putting together a few frames, I 
got multiple numbers, probably as the band rotated while it scratched.  The 
sequence looks like either 63840 or possibly 33840, with the "0" being the end 
number at the butt-end of the band.   Another shot seems to show the initial 
character as a "P", but I will not swear to it.

How cool is that????

I posted a photo on the TexBirds FB page, and more on my page (Clayton Taylor). 
  Opinions or information about groups radio-tagging hummers would be 
appreciated.


Clay Taylor
TOS Life Member
Calallen (Corpus Christi), TX
Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Clay.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



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[texbirds] Radio-tagged Hummingbird in Corpus Christi

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