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Re: Broad-billed Hummer (Sunday)



She's got a Broad-billed too?

;-)

Gary Phillips
Conway, SC
 Zone 8
walela@sccoast.net
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get
better. It's not." (Dr. Seuss, "The Lorax")
-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
To: carolinabirds@duke.edu <carolinabirds@duke.edu>
Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 1:56 PM
Subject: Broad-billed Hummer (Sunday)


>Hi Carolinabirders,
>
>Shantanu Phukan and I saw the Broad-billed Hummingbird at Monte Tickle's
>house yesterday at roughly 10:40 AM. Sorry neither of us posted sooner,
>we were both a little sleep-deprived (and yet neither of us got to see
>the Leonids!). Actually, we're kind of relying on faith in Susan C. for
>the identification; Shantanu said he could only tell that it was some
>kind of hummingbird, and I could go only slightly beyond that and confirm
>that it was mostly green.
>
>We had just arrived at the house and were introducing ourselves to Ms.
>Tickle when I heard a suspicious chipping call very different from the
>Yellow-rumped Warblers all around us. I turned to scan the trees, and the
>little bugger zipped in at the feeder behind us. It quickly zipped up
>into the trees; I had one or two good naked-eye looks at it perched in
>some twigs, but it was gone before we could get our binoculars on it.
>And, as Les Todd already noted, it never came back. We did get a thrill
>as something flew in and hovered over the garden pond, but it turned out
>to be a dragonfly...
>
>Some tidbits that you may not already know: apparently the bird has been
>visiting its present location for FIVE WEEKS!! Ms. Tickle forgot to take
>her feeder down in September, and then last month a new hummer appeared
>long after her regulars had left. She kept feeding it, but didn't contact
>anyone (she's a beginning birder, and not on Carolinabirds) until the
>weather got cold and she became concerned for its survival. She says it
>visited every 15 minutes or so during the recent cold spell, but became
>far less regular when things warmed up again.
>
>Anyway, her yard is a very birdy spot. There was near-constant activity
>in the surrounding trees. Shantanu and I noted 22 bird species, including
>the hummer, in about an hour and a half in the morning; we returned after
>a lengthy search for lunch (found some Thai food in Greensboro) to find
>Les Todd and some other birders waiting, and noted about seven or eight
>more species in the yard. We also saw a Red-tailed Hawk in the big
>hayfield along 70, and an accipiter not too far up the road from Ms.
>Tickle's house. She supplied us all with hot chocolate right before
>Shantanu and I had to leave.
>
>Good birding,
>
>Josh
>
>
>Joshua S. Rose
>Duke University
>Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)
>
>jsr6@duke.edu
>http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/
>
>
>