Just a week after seeing a Calliope
Hummingbird at a NH feeder came word that a Black-chinned
Hummingbird was being seen in Fairfield, CT – both were state firsts! At the request of the homeowner, the
Black-chin was not being reported on the CT listserve nor on e-bird. Instead, news was spreading by word of
mouth. Luckily I got a call from a CT
birder with all the details – many thanks for the call! The bird was not coming to a feeder but
instead to flowers which were still blooming despite the November date.
Now I had to figure out when I could get
there, or even if I would go. I
typically limit my chasing to a 2-hour drive from home, and Fairfield was 2
hours 40 minutes away. But as I’ve
neared my goal of seeing 2,000 statebirds in New England, the possibilities for
new statebirds have diminished. And I’ve
found myself driving a bit farther to chase after stakeouts. So since this was a first for CT, I decided
to give this one a try. I couldn’t break
free for 3 days, so next the issue was whether the bird would stick around till
then. It had been coming to these
flowers for about a week, so as long as there wasn’t a killing freeze,
hopefully it would stick around for 3 more days. The home was located very close to the coast
so the warm water would likely shelter the flowers from anything but a hard
freeze. At least that was my hope since
the morning I headed out to try for the bird it was 24 degrees at my
house. At the same time the temperature
in Fairfield was listed as 36 degrees so I was cautiously optimistic.
I arrived at the Fairfield address at about
8:30 and made my way to the back yard where I was told the bird had been coming
to a pineapple sage plant. But just a
few seconds later the homeowner came out and said the bird had recently been
coming to two other sage plants in the front yard, including earlier that
morning. So the bird made it through the
night! I walked around out front and
almost instantly heard the bird chattering.
And less than a minute later it was feeding at one of the sage
plants. I got great prolonged views of
this bird including vigorous pumping of its tail, a few black/purple feathers
in the gorget (making it a young male?), greenish coloration to the sides, and long
and slightly decurved bill. Couldn’t
have been any more cooperative. And to
think it was just a couple months earlier that I was watching a feeder full of
Black-chins in the panhandle of OK, and a couple also coming to pineapple sage
in the southwest corner of KS. I think I
have to get one of these plants for my garden.
Black-chinned Hummingbird was CT statebird
#305 for me, and #423 for me in all of New England. I’ve now seen this species in 15 states- 11
out west, 3 along the Gulf Coast as an increasing winter visitor, and now in CT
as an extreme rarity.
No comments:
Post a Comment