Rufous Hummingbird Gallery
Selasphorus rufus
eBird describes the Rufous Hummingbird like this: Adult males are almost entirely orange with bright white chest and some green on the back (can be solid green like Allen’s Hummingbird). Throat is iridescent, and depending on the light, can look anywhere from red to orange to yellow to lime green. On females and immatures, look for orange on sides and tail to separate from Anna’s and Black-chinned. Found in a variety of wooded habitats; more common in migration in suburbs, meadows, and other brushier areas. Feeds on nectar and tiny insects. All About Birds provides this additional descriptive information about the Rufous Hummingbird: One of the feistiest hummingbird in North America. The brilliant orange male and the green-and-orange female Rufous Hummingbird are relentless attackers at flowers and feeders, going after (if not always defeating) even the large hummingbirds of the Southwest, which can be double their weight. Rufous Hummingbirds are wide-ranging, and breed farther north than any other hummingbird. Look for them in spring in California, summer in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and fall in the Rocky Mountains as they make their annual circuit of the West.
I saw my first Rufous Hummingbirds on my August 31, 2020 visit to Christmas Mountains Oasis. I wasn’t able to get a photo of a mature male, but I saw several of these beautiful hummers during my visit.
“Cool Facts” about the Rufous Hummingbird from All About Birds:
- The Rufous Hummingbird is a common visitor to hummingbird feeders. It is extremely territorial at all times of year, attacking any visiting hummingbird, including much larger species. They’ve been seen chasing chipmunks away from their nests.
- The Rufous Hummingbird makes one of the longest migratory journeys of any bird in the world, as measured by body size. At just over 3 inches long, its roughly 3,900-mile movement (one-way) from Alaska to Mexico is equivalent to 78,470,000 body lengths. In comparison, the 13-inch-long Arctic Tern’s one-way flight of about 11,185 mi is only 51,430,000 body lengths. (AAB)
- During their long migrations, Rufous Hummingbirds make a clockwise circuit of western North America each year. They move up the Pacific Coast in late winter and spring, reaching Washington and British Columbia by May. As early as July they may start south again, traveling down the chain of the Rocky Mountains. People first realized this pattern after examining detailed field notes and specimens, noting the birds’ characteristic dates of arrival on each part of the circuit.
- The Rufous Hummingbird has an excellent memory for location, no doubt helping it find flowers from day to day, or even year to year. Some birds have been seen returning from migration and investigating where a feeder had been the previous year, even though it had since been moved.
- The Rufous Hummingbird breeds as far north as southeastern Alaska – the northernmost breeding range of any hummingbird in the world. Of the western hummingbirds that occasionally show up in the east, the Rufous Hummingbird is the most frequent.
- Rufous Hummingbirds, like most other hummingbirds, beat their wings extremely fast to be able to hover in place. The wingbeat frequency of Rufous Hummingbirds has been recorded at 52–62 wingbeats per second.
- The Rufous Hummingbird is not a colonially nesting species; however, there have been reports from Washington state that have 20 or more Rufous Hummingbird nests only a few yards apart in the same tree. (From the BNA)
- Hummingbirds are hard to catch, but there are records of Rufous Hummingbirds being caught by a large flycatcher (Brown-crested Flycatcher) and by a frog.
- The oldest recorded Rufous Hummingbird was a female, and at least 8 years 11 months old when she was recaught and rereleased during banding operations in British Columbia.