Mystery Hummingbird
July 24, 2009
This hummingbird was photographed in mid-July in northwestern Montana. Experts are divided on what it is. Let us know what you think in the comments.
© Dan Garber
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center’s Blog
Fostering greater understanding, appreciation, and protection of the grand phenomenon of bird migration.
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July 24, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Overall the exposure appears to be dark, has a red color cast, and seems a little oversaturated (at least on my display). In Photoshop, when I lighten the image, add some cyan to compensate for the color cast, then reduce the overall color saturation several points it begins to look a lot more like a female Broad-tailed.
July 24, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I looked in my bird book and it looks like aBuff-bellied Hummingbird. The range is susally Texas or Mexico
July 24, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Problem with Buff-bellied as a possibility is they have a red bill in all plumages.
July 26, 2009 at 8:56 am
Just to add to my analysis, note in the Sibley Guide to Birds (pg. 300 in my first edition or pg. 261 Western field guide) for juvenile female Broad-tailed the extensive rufous on the flanks and the line behind the eye (which shows clearer in his painting of the adult female BRTH). My call for this is based on these field marks coupled with the image adjustments mentioned in my first comment.
Hope others chime in . . .
July 27, 2009 at 11:35 am
Conferring with the Director of Bird Conservation here at Audubon … we don’t see any good candidates from Mexico, so we are going to cast our vote for female Calliope due to the size (it appears quite small compared to the flower), lack of any white in between the spotting on the chin and the rufous on the breast, and no visible rufous at the base of the tail, although it is certainly not the best angle. Also, Nat Geo has the back more golden than the Broad-tailed, and there is golden coloring visible in the photo. On the other hand, the bill looks a little fatter than what we would expect for a Calliope.
July 28, 2009 at 8:10 am
I also considered Calliope, but eliminated it based upon 2 main field marks: 1.) the heavy bill (noted above by Liz) and 2.) the tail, which is much longer and rounded compared to what one might expect for Calliope. NatGeo Complete Birds of North America notes the following(Calliope, pg. 356):
“Note the relatively short and squared tail . . . ”
“. . . the female Broad-tailed is remarkably similar in plumage to the Calliope; other than size and bill length, note the Broad-tailed’s longer tail, which is mostly green above.”
The bird in the photo has a longer, rounded tail; length from vent to the tip of the tail feathers seems to be far too long compared to images & paintings that are out there of Calliope.
Regarding Liz’s mention of the lack of rufous at the base of the tail, from NatGeo’s Broad-tailed entry (pg.357):
“IMMATURE FEMALE: Resembles adult female . . . tail averages less rufous at base.”
In addition, the white between the spotting on the chin and the buffy/rufous breast on the adult female Broad-tailed is noticeably absent on the immature female of this species. Sibley shows buffy/rufous all the way to the chin in his painting of imm. female BTLH.
If SMBC could obtain permission from the photographer, it might be helpful if I were to upload (I can use my site to host) and post a link here to a comparison I’ve put together with both the original image and the one I have adjusted.
I remain convinced – stubborn as I am
– that the bird in the photo is a juvenile female Broad-tailed.
July 28, 2009 at 9:19 am
Go for it Kevin. I am the photographer and you have my permission. I also responded to what I think is your request sent thru Greg at the Smithsonian, but not being too computer literate, I am giving you permission here as well. However I don’t think it is as saturated as you think as the rose(Olympiad) and the lily(Brunela) are both intensly colored flowers. The picture is definitly dark though and somewhat saturated.
Dan Garber
July 28, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Thanks Dan!
I’ve posted the image comparison here with both the original and a version with the slight corrections I’ve made (noted at the bottom). Lightening of the image wasn’t that great, so probably around a 1.5 to 2 stop underexposure is my guess. Gotta fall back to Sibley and his painting of the juvenile Broad-tailed, though . . .
July 28, 2009 at 2:01 pm
For some reason the link I embedded didn’t work, here’s the full URL:
http://www.naturalvisionsphoto.com/misc/hummingbird comparison.html
July 28, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Kevin I went to that link and it said “Sorry that page cannot be found.”
Dan
July 28, 2009 at 7:41 pm
For some reason the blog software text-wrapped the link, truncating the complete link. I’ve changed the link and hopefully this new one will work better:
http://is.gd/1ROEf
I’ve used a tool for shortening web addresses and am crossing my fingers . . .
July 29, 2009 at 8:36 am
Kevin I still see Olympiad and Brunela every day so I can compare the colors of those easily. They don’t fly away. I would say you need to try about half way in between on the saturation and see what that looks like.
July 29, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I made an additional adjustment in overall image density – mine was a little bit light by about 1/2 stop or so – and reposted the photo, but color saturation (or color intensity, if you will) is, in my estimation, about where it should be looking at it on my two different displays.
Ultimately, I’m more concerned with how the bird looks and, when all is said and done, I still think it is a juvenile female Selasphorus platycercus, Broad-tailed Hummingbird.
I’ve looked at a bunch of possibilities and can say with a high degree of certainty that it is not a vagrant from Texas or Mexico. It does not appear (based upon field marks pictured or described in multiple field guides I’ve consulted, both in print and online) to be one of the 4 other species of hummingbird that regularly occur in Montana, nor does it look anything like either of the two accidentals (Ruby-throated or Costa’s) that have been reported in the state in the past.
In addition, while not sure exactly where you are in NW Montana, according to MT’s Fish, Wildlife, and Park’s online field guide ( http://is.gd/1TAI1 ), Broad-tails have been recorded in a number of western counties in the state, including the most northwesterly of them, Lincoln County (if I’m reading the map correctly, Sanders looks to be the only NW county with no recorded Broad-tails).
Still, maybe someone will come along and point out where I’ve made a mistake in analyzing the field marks on the bird in your photo.
I’ll keep checking back, though, to see if a better alternative comes up.
All the best to you!
(And, if you haven’t checked it out already, you can see some of my work by clicking on my name in the message’s header.)
July 29, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Kevin we live in Lincoln county right on the state line between Troy and Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho. It is mountainous where we live although our yard is an oasis in the middle of a solid evergreen forest of lodgepole, Doug Fir, larch, ponderosa, cedar, etc. Our yard however has an elm tree, maples, fruit trees, roses, and flowers of many other kinds. Not far down the road the country opens up into farmer’s fields and by the time you get to Bonner’s you hit the river and all the stuff that goes with a meandering river thru farm lands. The only three hummers I have ever seen here are black chinned, rufous, and calliope. We have lots of all of them this year. I probably wouldn’t recognize a broad tailed if I saw one though. Now I’m off to check out your work.
July 30, 2009 at 8:06 am
If we can ever establish that it is, in fact, a Broad-tailed, if it were me I would report the sighting to the state’s wildlife division and also the Montana Bird Records Committee (they have a rare bird report form here: http://is.gd/1Umtg ). In fact, you may want to share the information with the records committee anyway. We know they occur at least rarely in Lincoln County based upon previous records, and there may be more there than previously believed. And if it is a juvenile as I believe, the species may actually be breeding in the region.
July 30, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Kevin,
Ahhh, but how are you ever going to prove it’s a broad-tailed? Nice photography site you have. If we ever get back to Bryce Canyon we’ll look you up. We go thru the area on the way to Albuquerque where my daughter and mother live.
July 30, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Kevin I sent the picture to the Montana Bird Records Committee as you suggested. I’ll let them make up their own minds on whether it is a broad tailed or not. I did tell them about this Smithsonian blog site so they can read your rational for that id if they want.
July 31, 2009 at 7:42 am
I sent a note to one of their members, too, hopefully they’ll be able to help out. I’ve probably over analyzed things, but was just trying to make the best fit based upon the most obvious field marks/distinguishing features . . .
July 30, 2009 at 10:14 pm
it looks like a humming bird to me.
July 31, 2009 at 8:29 am
Kevin the records committe guy sent the picture to Ned Batchelder. I researced him and he is a hummingbird bander with a long history. In one article I read he had banded over 20,000 hummers. It’d probably a lot more by now. He is familiar with the birds from Montana and Washington and I suppose the whole northwest. He thinks it’s a immature rufous.
August 1, 2009 at 1:52 am
Dan:
When I first saw your most recent post, I raised my eyebrows and thought “Well, I guess I was wrong.”
Then, being a bit skeptical and having shot numerous images of Rufous recently, well, something just didn’t feel quite right. It was the first species I looked at before ultimately deciding on Broad-tailed, so I decided to take another closer look at Rufous . . .
Now I’m probably opening a can of worms disputing what Mr. Batchelder, says (and I am somewhat familiar with him and his work with hummingbirds from things I’ve read in the past), especially since he is unquestionably more of an expert on hummers than I am, but, sorry, I will have to agree to disagree with his assessment.
My reasoning: The bird in your photo lacks a distinct feature that looks to be common among Rufous Hummingbirds (RUHU): a white “bib” (which actually goes all the way down the breast on females) and a white collar that extends partially around the neck.
It is shown in all of David Sibley’s paintings for Rufous – immature and adult, male and female (link to his guide on eNature):
http://is.gd/1X1cj
This next link is to a collage of 6 different images of RUHU that I have taken over the past 2 weeks, all different individuals and including an adult male:
http://is.gd/1X0MY
Each and every one of my 6 RUHU images and each and every one of Sibley’s 7 paintings of RUHU shows a bird that sports the white “bib” and collar – field marks that the hummingbird in your photo clearly does not have.
Then I looked through over 10 pages of thumbnail images (200+) of RUHU using Google image search, and that one field mark was visible in all but a few of them (it obviously doesn’t show in photos taken from behind or other bad angles and in one photo on the Idaho Fish & Game website that I might argue is probably a Calliope based upon plumage and wing length).
Then, just to be a little more certain, I dug into my books/field guides, as well as a few other references that were readily at hand:
Kaufman’s Birds of North America? Shows a white “bib” and collar.
National Geographic Complete Guide to Birds of North America? White “bib” and collar here, too.
National Geographic Handheld Birds (for Palm): Different paintings than the Complete Guide, but they still show a white “bib” and collar.
Cornell’s Birds of North America software (Ver3.1)? You guessed it – white “bib” and collar in all 5 photos of different plumages as well as the collar being mentioned in the text.
In addition, I looked at several online field guides and the result was still the same – white “bib and collar (just Google Rufous Hummingbird).
Maybe I’m just being stubborn at this point, but I remain unconvinced that it is anything other than what I’ve been saying from the outset. All of the readily available evidence indicates the bird in your photo is not a Rufous Hummingbird because it lacks what is, based upon numerous sources and personal recent experience, a distinctive and universal field mark.
I’ll make this one concession, there is one piece of evidence that will convince me I’m wrong, and, to be honest, it probably won’t be easy to come up with: Proof that they don’t have the “bib” and collar when they fledge. And about the only way I could see that happening would be for someone to produce a photo of a just-about-to-fledge Rufous Hummingbird that lacks these distinctive features and with the mother in the photo – maybe feeding it at the nest – to permit positive ID of the species.
Give me that and I’ll accept that I’m wrong,, eat a little crow, and apologize to everyone involved – if we actually reach that point.
I’ve stated my case as clearly and concisely as possible and from where I sit the evidence simply seems to eliminate Rufous as a possibility. The references I’ve cited seem to fully support my position, too.
Now, while I suppose it is possible, I would be very surprised to find that David Sibley, Kenn Kaufman, National Geographic, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and a host of others are all wrong in their treatment of Rufous Hummingbirds.
In my opinion the burden of proof in this discussion is no longer mine (if it ever really was).
(Of course, maybe it is some kind of weird hybrid – say a Rufous x Broad-tailed crossbreed . . . ?)
August 4, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Kevin you need to present this evidence to Ned and see what he says. I’m just the guy who took the picture.
August 8, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Dan & Kevin,
I know nothing about Hummingbirds except that I love when they come to my bottle brush trees. I just wanted to tell you that your pictures are absolutely beautiful and do you have any tips on how I might be able to catch pictures like yours of my humminbirds in my Florida back yard? Also, the picture shows your humminbird at a rose. I have 30 red “knockout” roses in my yard and have never seen a hummingbird at one of them. Is it common for them to go to roses? Is there a chance I am just missing seeing them at my roses? I usually see them at the bottlebrushes around 6 or 7 in the evening. Thanks in advance for any response you give me. Michele
August 12, 2009 at 8:15 am
It looks like a Calliope Hummingbird to me. The broad-tailed has a larger amount of white on its tail. This hummingbird has a very darkly marked gorget that more resembles calliope. Also the range of the broad tailed does not extend that high into Northwestern Montana.
November 5, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I have to Agree with Kevin that the Mystery Hummingbird is a Broad-Tailed. The Exposure and
Colorcast of the Image can make Identity Confusing.
It is Definitely not a Rufous.