Big hummingbird banding news – REALLY big!
The diversity of hummingbird species in SABO’s ongoing monitoring project on the San Pedro River now goes to eleven! A juvenile female Magnificent Hummingbird, banded last Thursday at Casa de San Pedro B&B, is the latest addition to our study. She’s a giant compared to our usual clientele: bill length 27.3 mm, wing length 67.2 mm, tail length 40 mm, weight 7.3 grams.
A juvenile (“hatch-year”) female Magnificent Hummingbird poses for her “mug shot.” Look at that huge bill!
Magnificent Hummingbirds are residents of pine-oak forest from central and northern Arizona south into Central America. Though uncommon to fairly common just a few miles away in the Huachuca Mountains, “Mags” are rare spring and fall visitors to the cottonwood-willow habitats of the San Pedro River. One of our regular banding session visitors had the honor of assisting in the release of this young ambassador from the “sky islands.”
Visitor Devon admires this rare mountain jewel while waiting for her to take flight.
In honor of this new species for the study, we tallied the numbers of each hummingbird species banded so far at our two sites on the San Pedro River (San Pedro House August 1995-present and Casa de San Pedro B&B 2011-present, hybrids not included):
| Black-chinned* | 5394 | 79.75% |
| Rufous | 707 | 10.45% |
| Anna’s | 239 | 3.53% |
| Broad-billed* | 213 | 3.15% |
| Broad-tailed | 89 | 1.32% |
| Calliope | 86 | 1.27% |
| Allen’s | 16 | 0.24% |
| Costa’s | 9 | 0.13% |
| Violet-crowned* | 8 | 0.12% |
| Lucifer | 2 | 0.03% |
| Magnificent | 1 | 0.02% |
| * breeds on the San Pedro River | ||
Only six banding sessions are left in the 2016 season (three at each of our two sites), and there may be few or no birds still around for the last two sessions, so make plans to join us this weekend or next weekend. See SABO’s Calendar of Events for more information.
Thanks as always to our dedicated volunteers, our hosts Karl and Patrick at Casa de San Pedro and the Friends of the San Pedro River, and SABO’s many members and donors, all of whom make possible the continuation of this landmark study.