—Alexander Wilson.
If we desire to study the Broad-tailed Hummingbird in the regions that it frequents, we must journey to the mountainous district of Western North America. Here it may be found in large numbers, for it is the most common of all the species that frequent the mountains. It seeks its food of insects and honey from the flowers of a prolific flora extending from Wyoming and Idaho southward through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and over the table lands of Mexico into Guatemala. It is pretty generally distributed throughout the various mountain systems between the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas.
Dr. Merriam found the Broad-tails very abundant in the balsam and pine belts of the San Francisco Mountains of Arizona, where their principal food plants were the scarlet trumpet flower and the large blue larkspur. Of their habits he says, “They wake up very early in the morning and go to water at daylight, no matter how cold the weather is. During the month of August, and particularly the first half of the month, when the mornings were often frosty, hundreds of them came to the spring to drink and bathe at break of day. They were like a swarm of bees, buzzing about one’s head and darting to and fro in every direction. The air was full of them. They would drop down to the water, dip their feet and bellies, and rise and shoot away as if propelled by an unseen power. They would often dart at the face of an intruder as if bent on piercing the eye with their needlelike bill, and then poise for a moment almost within reach before turning, when they were again lost in the busy throng. Whether this act was prompted by curiosity or resentment I was unable to ascertain.”
It seems strange and unnatural that so delicate a bird and one so highly colored should frequent localities where periods of low temperature are common. Yet the Broad-tailed Hummingbird prefers high elevations and has been known to nest at an altitude of eleven thousand feet, and it seldom breeds at places lower than five thousand feet.
The males leave for their winter homes very early in the season. Usually this migration takes place very soon after the young birds leave their nests. Mr. Henshaw attributes this movement of the males to the fact that their favorite food plant, the Scrophularia, begins to lose its blossoms at this time. He says: “It seems evident that the moment its progeny is on the wing and its home ties severed, warned of the approach of fall alike by the frosty nights and the decreasing supply of food, off go the males to their inviting winter haunts, to be followed not long after by the females and young. The latter, probably because they have less strength, linger last, and may be seen even after every adult bird has departed.”
BROAD-TAILED HUMMINGBIRD.
(Selasphorus platycercus.)
Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
Though the flight of all hummingbirds is rapid, that of this species is unusually so. During the breeding season, or at least while mating, the flight of the male is accompanied by a loud metallic noise. This is only heard when the bird is rapidly flying and not when it is hovering over flowers. Mr. Henshaw suggests that this sound may be “analogous to the love notes of other birds.” Though he saw “many of these birds in the fall, it was only very rarely that this whistling note was heard, and then only with greatly diminished force.” He believed that the sound was produced at the will of the bird and by means of some peculiar attenuation of the outer primary wing feather. The nesting places of many of the hummingbirds, as well as that of the Broad-tail, may frequently be located by the peculiar perpendicular flight of the male. They will frequently fly as high as one hundred feet immediately above the vicinity of the nest, repeating the performance several times before alighting on some perch. The female is a faithful mother and will often remain on her nest until an intruder is within a few inches. The nest, though sometimes placed on large branches, is usually built but a few feet from the ground in low bushes or boughs that overhang water.
In their migrations southward the Broad-tailed Hummingbird is frequently found in company with the rufous-backed species, for which it shows an especial animosity. Speaking of these two species, Mr. Henshaw says: “The beds of bright flowers about Willow Spring, in the White Mountains, Arizona, were alive with them in August, and as they moved swiftly to and fro, now surfeiting themselves on the sweets they here found so abundant, now fighting with each other for possession of some such tempting prize as a cluster of flowers, their rapid motions and the beauty of their colors intensified by the bright sunlight, conspired to an effect not soon to be forgotten.”