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Observations on the Sunset Beach Black-chinned



Derb Carter and I watched the Sunset Beach Black-chinned Hummingbird for
a good 30 minutes on December 23. After looking at Randy Emmitt's photos
of this immature male, I feel that I should comment. The iridescence was
seen on the gorget only about 1/20 of the time - i.e., brief instances.
I recall the color a bit more purplish-violet, rather than the
blue-violet as seen in the photos.  At any rate, it certainly was not
red.

If I recall correctly, the gorget feathers on an immature male
Ruby-throat begin to apear more randomly, or at least are concentrated
at the base of the gorget. For BCH, because the upper throat feathers
are black and not iridescent, these feathers seem to come in after the
lower gorget purple feathers, such that there is a horizontal band
effect on this male below the relatively white upper throat (which will
become black). Actually, he had this band only on his left side; his
right side was rather bland, with no colored feathers showing!

Yes, the BCH did pump his tail quite rapidly while hovering at the
feeder, maybe 3 times/second. I do not recall RTH pumping their tails,
or not vigorously. This is supposedly an excellent field mark.

Another field mark is the folded primaries. The BCH has a wide folded
wing that is quite rounded or falcate at the tip.The RTH has a narrower
folded wing that is a bit more pointed. However, if you see a RTH by
itself, you will likely note a narrow rounded wing when folded at rest.
(See the drawings in the recent Sibley guide).

BCH supposedly has the wingtip coming to reach the tail, as opposed to a
slightly shorter wing in RTH. (I think! This is all done from memory.)

We could not tell much about bill length, curvature, head and back
color, etc. These are tricky, even though we did have an apparent female
RTH for comparison. BCH supposedly has a slightly longer bill, slightly
more curve, more brown on the head (less green), etc. In fact, I was not
impressed by the bill length or slight curvature in the BCH at Sunset
Beach.

The moral of the story is that calling a female BCH is going to be very
tricky, unless you see intensive tail pumping when hovering and also a
wide rounded wingtip. Fortunately, Susan Campbell has now banded about 4
in NC (one a year ago in Hampstead, and ones near Charlotte, Goldsboro,
and Sunset Beach this winter.)

I wish to thank Mary McDavit for keeping us posted on the BCH and the
Cinnamon Teal. For a while there she must have been wondering when the
birders were going to come down to see her birds. After all, there was a
mad rush to see the Mango near Concord, and the Vermilion Flycatcher,
Cinnamon Teal, and Fulvous Whistling-Duck at Goldsboro. Mary joined
Derb, myself, and Taylor Piephoff and his wife that morning as we saw
the two hummers, the Cinnamon Teal, the immature Bald Eagle, and the
nice array of ducks on Medcalf Lake.

The NC Bird Records Committee has not yet voted on ANY of these
1999-2000 BCH (we are trying to get both photos and text descriptions
for each record), but we certainly will this year. Right now, the
species is technically just Provisional, based on the acceptance of a
sight record. But, BCH, the Green-breasted Mango, and a few others are
certainly going to be added to the Official List this year.
--
Harry LeGrand
NC Natural Heritage Program
1615 MSC
Raleigh, NC 27699-1615
(919) 715-8687 (work)
FAX: 919-715-3085
e-mail: harry.legrand@ncmail.net