COBirders, I am not going to give a definitive answer to what species this hummingbird is but thought I would put my thoughts out there. First, I do not believe this bird is a Calliope. There is virtually no buff color to the sides and the undersides are very clean and mostly white looking. I do think the bill looks relatively short but this is not a great feature to go by except in the most extremes. The tail is rounded looking which in my experience Calliopes have almost a squared-off looking tail. I am not great at aging birds but this bird appears to be in fresh plumage and it is August so I would guess it is an immature bird. If it is an immature then I suppose things are probably a little tougher in that I am not sure how sizes may vary in immatures. But given what we can see in the video I think we can narrow this bird down to one of two species, MAYBE a third. My thoughts are that this bird is either a Ruby-throated or a Costa's. I suppose Black-chinned could be considered but I grew up with Black-chins and saw them throughout the full season and in all the years of watching them I never saw birds that were this white underneath and as contrasty as this bird. That certainly does not mean it could not happen. I think the clean white throat is very suggestive of the Ruby-throated as most black-chinned should show some dusky coloring or little spots, I am sure there can be exceptions. The undertail, although there are very few places you can see it in the video, appears to be light/white which also seems to be in favor of Ruby-throated. Or maybe it is a Costa's. The bird is very "fat" looking which I associate with Costa's more than either Ruby-throated or Black-chinned. In some views on the video the bird does look more dusky below than white which is good for Costa's. The bird does appear to be on the small side but the tail seems a little long. There are a couple of poses where the bill does seem to have a small arch to it or a decurved appearance which certainly points to Costa's. It would be nice if some experts could weigh in on this bird. Another thing that would be nice is if there are/were some shots of the bird sitting as most likely it could be determined if it was a Ruby-throated/Black-chinned thing versus a Costa's.
----- Mark Peterson Colorado Springs --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Join us at the 2009 Convention in Alamosa: http://cfo-link.org/convention/index.php You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
