identification – Hummingbirds to watch

Calliope Hummingbird: Smallest Bird in the US, and ID

Weigh out a penny and a half. That is a Calliope Hummingbird: two and a half grams of bird, the smallest that breeds anywhere in the United States or Canada.

Allen’s Hummingbird: ID, Range and a Species Divided

Allen’s Hummingbird is one of the most threatened hummingbirds in North America. It is also one that has colonised a major city within living memory.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird: ID, Trill, Range and Behaviour

You almost always hear this bird before you see it. A male Broad-tailed Hummingbird in flight drags a loud metallic trill behind him, a sound closer to a cricket than to anything you would expect from a bird.

Black-chinned Hummingbird: Identification, Range, and Behavior

The Black-chinned Hummingbird is the West’s great generalist. While other hummingbirds specialize, tied to a coastline or a mountain range or a particular kind of desert, this one turns up almost everywhere: in arid canyons, along river bottoms, in mountain forests, and in suburban backyards from southern British Columbia to Texas. It is one of the most widespread hummingbirds in western North America, and one of the least fussy.

Hummingbird Facts: The Numbers, Verified

Infographic of hummingbird facts - most live 3-5 years

Hummingbird facts are among the most-repeated and least-checked figures on the internet. Wingbeat rates, heart rates, and tongue speeds get copied from site to site until the numbers drift a long way from anything a researcher measured.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird: Identification, Range, and Behavior

Ruby throated Hummingbird perched on a thin branch

If you live anywhere in the eastern half of North America and a hummingbird visits your garden, this is almost certainly the bird. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only hummingbird species that breeds east of the Mississippi River

Anna’s Hummingbird: Identification, Range, and Behavior

The Anna’s Hummingbird is the West Coast’s year-round resident, hardy enough to hold its ground through winters that send every other North American hummingbird south. It is also the only hummingbird in North America whose entire head, crown and throat both, blazes rose-pink, and the only one whose males sing a real, learned song.

Rufous Hummingbird: Identification, Range, and Behavior

Pound for pound, the Rufous Hummingbird is the greatest traveler in the bird world. A bird weighing about as much as a penny flies from Mexico to Alaska and back, up to 8,000 miles in a year, along a route shaped like a giant loop across western North America.