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Black Chinned Hummingbird I believe (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter dave598
- Start date
SoCalHummerLady
Active member
Hi, Dave. I suspect no one's responded before because it's hard to tell what species the bird is from the photo. I'm a bit iffy about the black-chinned ID, myself. Black-chinneds usually have a fairly wide white band running across the top of their chests just below their iridescent purple collar.
I also wasn't sure about the pretty-well-defined "snakeskin" patterning on the chest and belly, but my experience over this summer in my hummer-infested yard was completely with black-chinned juveniles. They have very light grey, nearly white, chests and bellies, sometimes with random darker grey spots. Their iridescent collars were only just growing in during that time. I never saw a fully adult black-chinned in my yard over the summer.
So, last night, I looked at a bunch of images of adult black-chinneds online. Full adult birds DID have the "snakeskin" patterning, but they also all had the wide white band across the top of their chests below the iridescent collar. This guy's white band doesn't seem quite wide enough for him to be a black-chinned, but I could be wrong.
When I first started seeing black-chinned juveniles in my yard last summer, I didn't know what the heck they were. Looking at online images for comparison was how finally ID'd them as juvenile black-chinneds. I still look at online images to confirm my IDs when I'm uncertain.
You're outside the boundaries of Anna's hummers, which would have been my guess, so I have to admit, I don't know what your bird is. But congrats on getting a photo, anyway and keep trying. I started photographing hummers seriously last June - they can be very uncooperative, if fascinating, subjects!
I also wasn't sure about the pretty-well-defined "snakeskin" patterning on the chest and belly, but my experience over this summer in my hummer-infested yard was completely with black-chinned juveniles. They have very light grey, nearly white, chests and bellies, sometimes with random darker grey spots. Their iridescent collars were only just growing in during that time. I never saw a fully adult black-chinned in my yard over the summer.
So, last night, I looked at a bunch of images of adult black-chinneds online. Full adult birds DID have the "snakeskin" patterning, but they also all had the wide white band across the top of their chests below the iridescent collar. This guy's white band doesn't seem quite wide enough for him to be a black-chinned, but I could be wrong.
When I first started seeing black-chinned juveniles in my yard last summer, I didn't know what the heck they were. Looking at online images for comparison was how finally ID'd them as juvenile black-chinneds. I still look at online images to confirm my IDs when I'm uncertain.
You're outside the boundaries of Anna's hummers, which would have been my guess, so I have to admit, I don't know what your bird is. But congrats on getting a photo, anyway and keep trying. I started photographing hummers seriously last June - they can be very uncooperative, if fascinating, subjects!
