We are having another nice visit in the Estes Park area in Larimer County. This morning on my early walk down to get a newspaper, I found what I concluded to be an immature male Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
I saw this hummingbird at about 7:25 on Lower Broadview Road just 30 feet west of Lower Broadview's intersection with Mary's Lake Road close to where Mary's Lake Road crosses the Big Thompson River on the west end of Estes Park. I observed the bird for about a minute, clearly, in the bright, early morning sun, perched on top of a bush near the river at a distance of no more than 15 feet through 8x42 binoculars. The back, nape of the neck, and top of the head were a bright, shiny, metallic golden color. The folded wings were dark. Underneath, the breast and belly were whitish, suffused with gray, with no buffy coloring. The throat had fine streaking with some scattered darker feathers near the base of the throat where the bottom border of a gorget could be developing. With the angle of the sun, no iridescence was visible in these darker feathers, so I could not see whether these feathers were red, as in Ruby-throated, or purple, as in Black-chinned. When the bird took flight, the tail feathers had white tips with no sign of rufous coloring in the tail. These field marks ruled out Broad-tailed, Calliope, and Rufous Hummingbirds. I decided this was an immature male Ruby-throated Hummingbird, rather than a Black-chinned Hummingbird, based on the bright, shiny metallic gold color of the back. The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America description of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird notes that "some immature males have a golden cast on upperparts, unlike Black-chinned Hummingbird." I have seen a few immature male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds with this same metallic golden appearance at my feeders at home in Maryland during fall migration.
A nice find, but I need to start carrying my camera when I go for the newspaper.
Jim Nelson
Bethesda, Maryland.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/28081747.261041.1377830737204.JavaMail.root%40vznit170146.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
No comments:
Post a Comment