There's No Place Like Home: The Rufous Hummingbirds Arrive on the Tuolumne

So here's the thing. I've been on a quest to find a Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus). At this time they are in the middle of a truly epic migration. They are traveling from Mexico and Central America all the way to Canada and Alaska. They travel farther north than any other hummingbird, and for their size compared to miles traveled, they have the greatest migration of any bird (others travel farther, but they are bigger and are able to store more fat reserves for the long journey). What that means to us here in Stanislaus County is that we have a window of just a few weeks to see them as they pass through during the spring.

I have been scouring the Wild Tobacco shrubs that have proliferated along the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail for a couple of weeks now, and was thrilled to read that fellow nature blogger Siera Nystrom spied one on the trail on March 27 (check out her great blog here). It was only the second sighting in the entire county this year. On April first my quest continued and I was walking past one of the shrubs they love so much. I saw movement, and thought I saw a flash of gold, so I got the camera ready and got off a single shot before the bird flew off. I got home and downloaded the picture, enlarged it, played around with Photoshop, and finally decided that I might have seen the elusive bird.

Then Mrs. Geotripper called me off the computer, letting me know I promised to work in the garden in the backyard. And of course you know what happened...

The bird buzzed right past my ear, took a drink at the hummingbird feeder, buzzed past my ear again, and landed in the Crepe Myrtle tree not ten feet from where I was standing. And it sat there for another five or ten minutes while I went indoors for the camera and came back to start snapping pictures. Of course it was a female Rufous Hummingbird. The only limitation was that the sun had set and it was a bit dark for photography.

Like most birds, the female is the least-adorned. I was still hoping to catch a male somewhere, so the search continued at home and along the river. And today it happened.

Somehow Mrs. Geotripper has been my good luck bird charm. She called me while I was hiking so I stopped and was staring off in the distance while talking, and my attention was drawn to movement in the tobacco plant across from me. And there it was, a male feeding in the flowers. Even better, it was slowly hovering enough to get some pleasing shots, including the one at the top of the post.

The Rufous Hummingbirds can live for as long as a decade, and they have an excellent memory for the locations of the kinds of shrubs and flowers they prefer. Even though they are not overly common in our area, they have shown in up in the same area in the four years that I've been watching.

First Rufous Hummingbird of the Year (for me)

I had quite the day on my birdwalk on the Tuolumne Parkway Trail. I saw a total of 41 species, the most ever from a single walk. But what was even better is that I had my first sighting of the season of a Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus). This one is a female (or an immature male). The mature males are bright orange all over (for pictures, see this post from last year).

The Rufous Hummingbirds are not seen in our area all that often, as they are actually on a long migration from Central America to Alaska and they are just passing through. I had a handful of springtime sightings last year, and saw even more in the late summer. They are said to have an excellent memory for feeding sites, which probably explains why I saw nearly all of them in the same Wild Tobacco bushes near the water treatment plant along the Tuolumne Parkway Trail. I'll be working to get better shots in the next few weeks while they are still around.

The Flying Jewels of the Tuolumne River, the Hummingbirds

Our local environment hosts around five species of hummingbirds, although the Calliope or Costa's Hummingbirds have rarely been sighted (especially not by me). But hummingbirds are common in the area, as the moderate climate provides at least some food during the winter, and plentiful food during other parts of the year.

The Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) is a summertime visitor, and they've been regulars at our backyard feeders. I was sitting on the porch last evening and had this one checking me out. They are characterized by...a black chin! But it is the purple iridescence of their head and neck feathers that makes them look like flying amethyst crystals in the right light. I've only caught the color a few times in images.

The Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) is a fall and spring migrant in our region. The rich golden color is distinctive. They've been reported at only four other locations in our county so far this fall, but I've been following a small crowd of them in the wild tobacco shrubs near the Waterford water treatment plant, and a little ways downstream. I saw the first ones on August 7, and they are continuing to argue with each other right up through this afternoon. These flying gold nuggets will be missed when they move on south soon.

The Rufous Hummingbirds have a long migration, traveling from Alaska to Mexico with the seasons. When considering their size, their migration is the longest of any bird. Some birds go farther, but the Rufous travels 78 million body lengths; for a human, that would be just over three trips around the world!

The resident hummingbird in our region is the Anna's Hummingbird (Calpte anna). That makes hummingbird identification during the winter rather simple. They have a magenta iridescence when it is visible.

Rufous Hummers 2.0: Of course the next day I get better pictures!

Whenever I see a new or unusual bird, I go with whatever pictures I'm able to get. Take for example the Lazuli Bunting I saw this morning for the first time. I have no idea if I'll ever get a chance to take better pictures, so the ones I have get posted. Well, yesterday I saw a Rufous Hummingbird as I was walking and I got some okay pictures, so they got posted yesterday. Then today, one of them landed right in front of me, wondering, no doubt, whether I needed to be chased away (they are highly pugnacious that way: they take on much bigger birds at times). I snapped a couple of close-up shots, and here is the best one. I suppose tomorrow it will land in my hand or something...

Rufous Hummingbirds on the Tuolumne River

Rufous Hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) were the subject of a post only a few weeks ago, but that was because I was in an exotic location (i.e. the Pacific Northwest) where the birds spend the summer season. I've only seen them a couple of times on my home turf as they migrated through the region last spring. So I was surprised to see three or four of them this morning on my morning walk on the Tuolumne River Parkway trail. They were immature males.

I guess they may be starting to move south for the winter (there have only been three sightings in Stanislaus County in the last 30 days). I couldn't help but notice they were in the same wild tobacco bush where I saw them last spring. The Cornell Lab mentions that the birds have an excellent memory for location.

Rufous Hummingbird in Florence, Oregon

We are on the road again (that's what geo-tripping is all about). We're along the Oregon coastline finding a way to stay cool, and have found ourselves in Florence. I was walking to the Harbor Vista County Park when a hummingbird caught my eye. Hummingbirds are generally a tropical species, so I tend to expect just one or two possible species this far north, primarily an Anna's. But this one had gold tones, so I realized right away I had spotted a Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus).

The Rufous Hummingbird is a world-class migrant, traveling nearly 4,000 miles from southern Mexico to Canada and Alaska. I've seen them only a few times, once last spring on the Tuolumne River (definitely a migrant), once in Southern California (a winter shot), and now I can add a summer sighting in the Pacific Northwest.

A First Sighting (for me) on the Tuolumne: A Rufous Hummingbird

I had quite a surprise the other day on my walk along the Tuolumne River. It was a Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus), a bird I have probably never seen before (the confusion of that statement is explained in this post). This incredibly beautiful hummingbird does not stay in our area year-round. We instead are on their migration route to Alaska, so they only pass through the region in the spring and fall. They breed farther north than any other hummingbird species.

I usually have to look pretty closely to identify hummingbirds, but the Rufous is hard to miss. I was watching several Anna's Hummingbirds in the flowering shrubs, and the bright orange-brown color of this male really stood out. It cooperated by remaining relatively still for a couple of minutes until I got tired of snapping pictures.

Allen's Hummingbird in Costa Mesa (Maybe)

For today's post, we find out why I'm still an amateur at the birding game. I was touring the Sherman Gardens in Costa Mesa in Southern California at the beginning of July. In other words, I was on unfamiliar ground. The gardens were nice to tour, and there was a hummingbird. It posed for me. It just sat there waiting for me to finish snapping a few pictures. It was clearly a Rufous Hummingbird female (Selasphorus rufus), since the Rufous is the only golden colored hummingbird I know (from my area, anyway).

But I wasn't in my home area. So I looked it up, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology had this to say: "Female and juvenile Rufous and Allen's hummingbirds are nearly indistinguishable in the field - it's probably better not to try to identify them during migration, when their ranges overlap considerably."

An Allen's? What's that? So it's an Allen's Hummingbird (Selasphorus sasin). Maybe. They live in the coastal areas of Southern California and Mexico. Or a Rufous Hummingbird, which has a much wider range across the American West, but the area we were in is a migration route rather than a breeding or wintering ground. So I settled on the Allen's for the title of the post. I welcome an identification from an expert!