Broad-tailed Hummingbird - Michael O'Brien
Report

Contributor

Michael O'Brien Media from this contributor

Date

Location

stakeout Broad-tailed Hummingbird, 1026 Batts Lane (Dec 2011–Mar 2012)
Cape May, New Jersey, United States
Media from this location Illustrated Checklist
Map
Map Coordinates: 38.9596171, -74.9305218
Age and sex
Immature Male - X

Observation details

According to Garr, present since after Thanksgiving. Relatively drab female Selasphorus with dull green upperparts, and white underparts washed with pale rufous on flanks and undertail coverts; brighter rufous axilars; sides of belly mottled with dull gray-green, possibly due to wear; brest-sides with a few brighter green feathers contrasting with clean white bib. Throat heavily stippled with bronzy-green, each feather neatly edged in white; a few (4-5?) orange-red feathers on lower edge of gorget. Tail relatively broad; r1 solid dull bluish-green with no dark tip or rufous base; r3-5 with wide white tips and relatively limited rufous bases. Primaries in molt; outer 6 pp old, inners new/growing; p10 relatively broad and blunt-tipped. Folded primaries fell slightly short of tail tip. Age/sex determined by throat pattern, broad p10, r1 pattern. Broad rectrices looked good for Rufous. Notes added January 16 - photos of this bird today by Alex Lamoreaux show a pretty clearly emarginated r2, enough to indicate Rufous Hummingbird, so I'm changing entry from Rufous/Allen's to Rufous. Notes added March 1 - This bird, previously thought to be a Rufous, was re-identified on March 1 as an immature male Broad-tailed. Retrospectively, looking at my photos from Jan, the green flank markings don't make sense for Rufous. Also, the tail shows extremely broad outer rectrices and a relatively squarish shape; r2 is about equal in length to r1-3, and r5 is only slightly shorter; Rufous should have a more graduated tail with r3 clearly longer than r2. I described the colored gorget feathers as orange-red in Jan; today with much better views they were clearly magenta, though some looks more orange-red at times, perhaps due to angle or wear?

Technical information

Model
Canon EOS 7D
Lens
EF300mm f/4L IS USM
ISO
1000
Focal length
300 mm
Flash
Flash did not fire, auto
f-stop
f/4.0
Shutter speed
1/500 sec
Dimensions
1800 pixels x 1200 pixels
Original file size
1.45 MB