Just Add Sugarwater….

Most of the little buzzers visiting our feeders right now are Costa’s Hummingbirds, pretty much as expected at our latitude and elevation. We do have an Anna’s or two drop in once in a while, too, but the prize of our summer hummerwatching here at our place is Black-chinned Hummingbird.

Yes, it’s the most abundant hummingbird in Arizona and much of the west, but we don’t see all that many of these swan-necked beauties in our desert neighborhood. The bee-like buzz of their wings and their silly squeaky chattering chips always make me look up, while I’m so spoiled by Calypte that Costa’s and Anna’s can often come and go without forcing so much as a glance.

There’s a historical mystery about Black-chinned Hummingbird, too. Its specific epithet is alexandri, and no one knows why. The most precise information out there is in Montes de Oca’s 1875 Ensayo ornitologico, where he writes simply “El Dr. Alexandre que visitó nuestor país [Mexico], fué quien descubrió esta preciosa especie de colibríes, y los Sres. Bourcier y Mulsant, en honor del descubridor, le dieron el nombre de Alexandri.” No one has ever been able to track down this mysterious Dr. Alexandre; Bourcier and Mulsant named the species in 1846, so he was not among those Frenchmen collecting for the “Emperor” Maximilian in the ’60s. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday. Meanwhile, we’ll be watching our feeders closely for migrant Selasphorus and for the arrival of wintering Broad-bills.