BLACK-CHINNED HUMMINGBIRD GALLERY
(Archilochus alexandri)
eBird provides the following description of the Black-chinned Hummingbird: Readily comes to sugar water feeders and flower gardens; found in a variety of wooded habitats across much of the western U.S and northern Mexico. Males have purple-and-black throat, greenish upperparts, dingy whitish belly and dark tail. Females are green above and whitish below, lacking any buffy-orange tones. Tends to pump its tail more than other hummingbirds. Similar in shape and plumage to Ruby-throated Hummingbird, but very little overlap in range (mainly Texas). Separate males by throat color; females and immatures nearly identical.
In July of 2017, I took a trip to Crested Butte, Colorado and stayed a week there. From the balcony of my condo, I photographed a hummingbird feeder, and one of the birds I took a picture of was a Black-chinned Hummingbird. The other picture I posted is from Crescent Bend Nature Park, where, on April 16, 2020, I took a photo of a female Black-chinned Hummingbird.
Black-chinned Hummingbird “Cool Facts” From All About Birds…
- As with most hummingbirds, females average larger than males, and young birds average larger than their parents.
- Along good stretches of some southern Arizona and southern New Mexico rivers, nests may be found every 100 meters or so.
- This is one of the most adaptable of all hummingbirds, often found in urban areas and recently disturbed habitat as well as pristine natural areas.
- During migration, individuals rarely remain longer than one day at a feeder even when food is scarce.
- The Black-chinned Hummingbird’s tongue has two grooves; nectar moves through these via capillary action, and then the bird retracts the tongue and squeezes the nectar into the mouth. It extends the tongue through the nearly closed bill at a rate of about 13–17 licks per second, and consumes an average of 0.61 milliliters (about a fifth of a fluid ounce) in a single meal. In cold weather, may eat three times its body weight in nectar in one day. They can survive without nectar when insects are plentiful.
- Black-chinned Hummingbirds aren’t so much drawn to red as they are to the colors of recent nectar sources.
- At rest, heart beats an average of 480 beats per minute. On cold nights they go into torpor, and the heart rate drops to 45–180 beats per minute. Breathing rate when resting is 245 breaths per minute at 91 degrees Fahrenheit; this rises to 420 breaths per minute when temperature drops to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Torpid hummingbirds breathe sporadically.
- A Black-chinned Hummingbird’s eggs are about the size of a coffee bean. The nest, made of plant down and spider and insect silk, expands as the babies grow.
- The oldest known Black-chinned Hummingbird was a female, at least 11 years, 2 months, when it was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in Texas.