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Rufous Hummingbirds at Castellow
Posted by Robin Diaz
about 8 years ago
2 Comments
The 2 female type Rufous Hummingbirds were a great find by Larry on September 23. Soon afterward, Mike took good photos of the spread tail on one bird so I sent it to hummingbird banders in NC and TX. The bird that Mike photographed is a young male Rufous. The banders pointed out the differences between an adult female and a young male, according to the gorget and the color of the central tail feathers. So, there's at least 1 young male Rufous Hummingbird there.
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My understanding is that the only way to tell Allen's from Rufous is to see the tail spread, especially the R2 which has a notch on the Rufous. Is this correct?
Adult female and immature male Rufous differentiated from the adult female and (sometimes) immature male Allen's is the trick. A notched r2 is what banders use to determine a Rufous. Mike's photo shows a notched r2. "r" stands for retrix (single) and rectrices (plural). There are 10 symmetrical rectrices (tail feathers) on Rufous and Allen's Hummingbirds and numbers are counted outward. The 2 central tail feathers are r1, so the ever-important r2 notched/unnotched feather is the next feather toward the outer tail.
Mike's photos show details on the r1 feathers and the gorget to identify at least one of the Castellow Hammock birds as an immature male Rufous. Larry's word choice of "female type" is a good when viewing these birds in the field.
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