Figure 238. A bright green back and narrow, pointed inner primaries help to identify this first-fall male Ruby-throated Hummingbird, photographed on 29 September 2002 at Lanphere Dunes, Humboldt County. As identification criteria become more widely known, acceptable vagrant records of this species may become more frequent (2002-162; Ron LeValley).

 

 

 

 

 

 

RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD Archilochus colubris (Linnaeus, 1758)

Accepted: 7 (58%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 5	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 0	Large color image: see Figure

This small hummingbird breeds very locally in northeastern British Columbia (fide R. Toochin) and from central Alberta to Nova Scotia and across almost the entire eastern United States, with the western limit extending from eastern North Dakota south to central Texas. The species winters primarily along the Pacific slope of Middle America, from southern Sinaloa south to central Costa Rica, but also in small numbers along the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, in western Panama, and in western Cuba. Vagrants have been recorded casually or accidentally north and west to Alaska, southwestern British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, northern Manitoba, Labrador, Newfoundland, Washington, Idaho (NAB 59:113), Utah (NAB 60:111), Colorado, New Mexico, and northwestern Baja California (NAB 58:148). From 21 to 24 March 2005 a first-winter male was documented at a location in southern Baja California Sur where an adult male was recorded on 30 September 2005 (NAB 59:329, 60:145), and from 20 December 2004 to 14 April 2005 a female wintered in southeastern Arizona (NAB 59:306).

A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird collected on 15 May 1975 at the Sagehen Creek Field Station, Nevada County, furnished California’s first record (Cole and Engilis 1986). The remaining six records involve fall migrants (21 August–29 September), five from the central and northern coast and one from Furnace Creek Ranch, Inyo County. See also Appendix H. The paucity of California records, and the fact that Southeast Farallon Island accounts for most of them, serve to underscore the difficulty in distinguishing females and immature males of this species from other small hummers, particularly the Black-chinned (see Phillips 1975, Baltosser 1987, Pyle 1997b, Dittmann and Cardiff 1999, Howell 2001a, 2002a) or apparent Ruby-throated × Black-chinned hybrids (e.g., Baltosser and Russell 2000, NAB 60:399).

 

[GREEN KINGFISHER Chloroceryle americana (Gmelin, 1788) – see hypothetical section]