Alright for this week's quiz it's easy to conclude that this bird is a species of hummingbird, it has the unique shape of a hummingbird, plus it's at a hummingbird feeder! Now we know that the location is Montana, so we pretty much have 4, possibly 5 species of regularly ocurring MT hummers. Black-chinned, Calliope, Broad-tailed, Rufous, and possibly Ruby-throated. Of course there's always the chance of a stray species, but we won't even consider that unless we rule out the regulars.
Black-chinned has very similar primaries as this bird (broad and long) but the bird is much to stubby and there's a buffy wash on the belly plus the crown is much to bright which safely rules out Black-chinned.
Broad-tailed can easily be ruled out by the long extension of the primaries.
Rufous and Ruby-throated can be ruled out for the same reason as Broad-tailed.
This leaves us with a perfect match for Calliope Hummingbird (Stellula calliope), everything seems to match, there's even a thin whit line over the gape (as Sibley shows, something I probably wouldn't have noticed).
I took this photo of a female (or juvenile) Calliope Hummingbird in Polebridge, Montana in July.
Congratulations to:
roundywaves
tim.birdboy
Tallies of incorrect guesses:
Ruby-throated Hummingbird - 1
Black-chinned Hummingbird - 2
featherbrain
Try out my photo quiz!Life is simple: Eat, Sleep, and BIRD!
"Walk softly and carry a big scope!"
