Saturday, June 2, 2012

Black-Chinned Hummingbird

Another "first" for me here in the panhandle. Shelley saw one of these flit by a couple days ago, and this morning I took up a position near our trumpet vines. After a few minutes (10 or 15 maybe) I saw this little girl dancing around some of the upper flowers and darting in and out of them.

(Female Black-Chinned Hummingbird)
These tiny birds are not uncommon to the panhandle, but they are not easy to see - especially in the early morning light. In addition to getting the nectar from flowers like these, they also dine on tiny flying bugs and are frequent/common visitors to hummingbird feeders. Black-Chinned Hummingbirds commonly perch on high, bare branches of trees.

As part of their mating ritual, males will perform a steep dive as much as 75 - 100 feet to impress the females.


2 comments:

  1. I just captured a few photos of these guys. Went to a friends house and his feed and trees were full of them. So much for being non-flocking and solitary types. They have no interest in the feeders I put out. Guessing that it is overloaded Titmouse, chickadee, Sparrow and KITE population. =/ Too much competition in the yards. Thanks for sharing and keep it up. You have a new reader. Z

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    1. I have the same problem with hummers. This is the first one I've ever seen in my backyard - in spite of having plenty of trumpet vines with nice juicy flowers on them. My feeder hasn't yielded anything that I've seen yet either. I keep trying.

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