Costa Rica Hummingbird Confirmations - 11/02 (1 Viewer)

[Jonny721]

Spent the day at La Paz Waterfall Gardens getting my first proper taste of hummingbirds. Managed to be comfortable with the ID's by the end of the session but just the following three that I would like confirmation of.
1/2 - different birds, I think both are female Green-crowned Brilliants, just with particularly paler bellies than the majority that were present.
3/4/5 - this small female hummingbird whizzed through very quickly, hence the poor photos only. Obviously different from the others I had been seeing, I think it could be a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird, though I may be missing something more obvious.

 

[THE_FERN]

1/2agree green-crowned brilliants: white post ocular spot and moustachial streak

Without certainty, I think the other may be stripe-tailed hummingbird. This is because: we see some developing rufous in the wings—especially in ..12 and ..25; I think the face pattern is wrong for ruby-throated [all dusky face here]; I don't think ruby-throated shows white outer tail feather edges extending as far as the undertail coverts (we can see this in ..25; just white-tailed tips in ruby-throated afaik, but stripe-tailed sometimes shows this); ruby-throated appears uncommon at that location according to ebird.

Usually stripe-tailed is paler underneath than here, but there are at least some vaguely similar Macauley images. (Black-bellied hummingbird is even commoner at the site but should have very different jizz to this I think.)

 

[Jonny721]

I hadn't even thought about female Black-bellied, there were multiple males present but I didn't see any females at all surprisingly. In the last image it looks like the outer tail feather is black, which would suggest Stripe-tailed which shows a black outer tail feathers followed by two white feathers, compared to Black-bellied which shows the 3 outer feathers as white?
But happy to leave it as one or the other if it cannot be certain from these images. Hopefully I should get Stripe-tailed later in the trip.

 

[THE_FERN]

In the last image it looks like the outer tail feather is black, which would suggest Stripe-tailed which shows a black outer tail feathers followed by two white feathers, compared to Black-bellied which shows the 3 outer feathers as white?

When I looked at the Macauley images I could see some where the outer tail feather appeared to be white in stripe-throated. This is no doubt an artifact/due to angle etc, but the impression you get for these birds can vary quite a bit. For example:

ML136622721 Black-bellied Hummingbird Macaulay Library

...a Macauley headline image for black-bellied which appears to show dark outer tail feathers.

From looking at the library pics, the impression I get for black-bellied is very different to what we see here:—a squashed in / compact hummer often with a pronounced dark cap and all white tail. In contrast, yours recalls something more robust, for example crowned woodnymph. So I think it's stripe-tailed.

 

[njlarsen]

Regarding stripe-tailed vs black-bellied: compare

Stripe-tailed Hummingbird - BirdForum Opus

www.birdforum.net

Notice the black tips of the outer tail feathers (less pronounced in female, who does not show the black on outer web as clearly). As far as I can see on the written descriptions I could find, the black-bellied should have less if any of the black on the tail feather tips.

From birds of the world: "female Stripe-tailed is slightly larger, has a somewhat more contrasting rufous patch on the secondaries, and the sides of the breast and the flanks of female Stripe-tailed Hummingbird are more heavily spotted with green."

Niels