A History of North American Birds; Land Birds; Vol. 2 of 3

by Spencer Fullerton Baird; T. M. Brewer; Robert Ridgway

Habits. This beautiful Humming-Bird is found from the high table-lands of Mexico throughout the western portions of that region, and through

all the coast country of California, from the slopes of the Sierra to the ocean. It was first taken in Mexico, and named in honor of Anna, Duchess of Rivoli. Mr. Nuttall was the first of our own naturalists to take it within our territory. He captured a female on its nest near Santa Barbara. This was described and figured by Audubon. The nest was attached to a small burnt twig of Photinia, and was small for the bird, being only 1.25 inches in breadth. It was somewhat conic in shape, made of the down of willow catkins, intermixed with their scales, and a few feathers, the latter forming the lining. It had none of the neatness of the nests of our common species, and was so rough on the outside that Mr. Nuttall waited several days in expectation of its being completed, and found the female sitting on two eggs when he caught her. Dr. Cooper, however, thinks this description applies much better to the nest of T. alexandri, as all that he has seen of this species are twice as large, and covered externally with lichens, even when on branches not covered with these parasites.

Dr. Gambel, in his paper published in 1846 on the birds of California, describes this as a very abundant species, numbers of which pass the entire winter in California. At such times he found them inhabiting sheltered hillsides and plains, where, at all seasons, a few bushy plants were in flower and furnished them with a scanty subsistence. In the latter part of February and during March they appeared in greater numbers. About the Pueblo the vineyards and the gardens were their favorite resort, where they build a delicate downy nest in small flowering bushes, or in a concealed spot about a fence. In April and May they may be seen in almost every garden.

In the wilder portions of the country Dr. Gambel found them attaching their nest almost exclusively to low horizontal branches of the Quercus agrifolia, or evergreen oak, so common in that region. The nest he describes as small, only about an inch in depth, and 1.25 inches in diameter, formed in the most delicate manner of pappus and down of various plants matted into a soft felt, with spider’s-webs, which he frequently observed them collecting for the purpose, in the spring, along hedges and fence-rows. The base of the nest is formed of a few dried male aments of the oak, which, with the adjoining felt-like matting of pappus, are agglutinated and bound around the twig with a thick layer of spider’s-webs. The note of this bird, he states, is a slender chep, frequently repeated. During the breeding-season they are very pugnacious, darting like meteors among the trees, uttering a loud and repeated twittering scold. They also have the habit of ascending to a considerable height, and then of descending with great rapidity, uttering at the same time a peculiar cry. The glutinous pollen of a tubular flower upon which these birds feed often adheres to the rigid feathers of the crown, and causes the bird to seem to have a bright yellow head. Nuttall, who never obtained the male of this species, but saw them in this condition, supposed this to be a yellow spot in the crown, and hence his supposed species of icterocephalus.

In California, south of San Francisco, this species was also observed, by Dr. Cooper, to be a constant resident in mild winters, remaining among the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, at least fifteen hundred feet above the sea. There he has found them quite common in February. At that season flowers, and consequently insects, are more abundant than in the dry summers. The males are in fine plumage early in January.

Dr. Cooper states that the nests of this species are built at various heights and positions, often in gardens, and sometimes on dead branches, without any attempt at concealment except the outside covering of lichens. He has found them made almost wholly of mosses, with only a lining of feathers and down of plants. In the neighborhood of San Francisco the young are sometimes hatched as early as the middle of March. This species appears to be more hardy than the others, being common along the coast border, though Dr. Cooper saw none near the summits of the Sierra Nevada.

The notes of the male bird, he states, are like the sound produced by the filing of a saw or the whetting of a scythe. They enter familiarly into the city of San Francisco, and even venture into rooms, attracted by the flowers. They are bold and confident, approach to within a few feet of man, but at the least motion disappear like a flash.

Dr. Heermann found this species quite common at San Diego in March, and in its full spring plumage. In September he procured a number of specimens on a small island in the Cosumnes River. While on the wing in pursuit of insects, or after alighting on a small branch, he heard them utter a very weak twitter, continued for a minute or more.

A nest of this species from Petaluma is about 1.50 inches in diameter, and 1.00 in height, and bears no resemblance to the one described by Nuttall. It is made of a commingling of mosses and vegetable down, covered externally with a fine yellow lichen. The eggs measure .60 by .40 of an inch, and are about ten per cent larger than those of any other North American Humming-Bird.

Another nest of this Humming-Bird, obtained in Petaluma, Cal., by Mr. Emanuel Samuels, measures 1.75 inches in diameter, and about 1.00 in height. Its cavity is one inch in diameter at the rim, and half an inch in depth. Its lining is composed of such soft materials that its limits are not well defined. The base of the nest is made of feathers, mosses, and lichens of several varieties of the smaller kinds. The periphery and rim of the nest are of nearly the same materials. The inner fabric consists of a mass of a dirty-white vegetable wool, with a lining of the very finest and softest of feathers, intermingled with down from the seeds of some species of silkweed. The predominant lichen in the base and sides of the nest is the Ramalina menziesii, which is peculiar to California. The nest contained a single egg.