Wildlife & Related

[Hummer]

This is the peak of season for hummingbirds in the mountains of Colorado. Yesterday we fed 9 gallons of sugar water to thousands of birds of three species.

On Tuesday I caught a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird that I had banded as an adult on July 28, 2010, 5 days short of nine years ago. This would make her at least 10 years and 2 months old, our oldest Broad-tailed and our oldest hummingbird recapture to date. Pretty exciting! She was also interesting in that she had "leucistic" white feathers in the forecrown and no iridescent gorget feathers which we associate with older females.

At 10 yrs 2 months old, our Broad-tailed Hummingbird record is two years short of the record of 12 years, 1 month old, set in 1976 in Colorado.

Two weeks ago a bird bander in Idaho recaptured a female Black-chinned Hummingbird he banded as an adult in June 2008. She is at least 12 years and one month old and breaks the Black-chinned longevity record by almost a year. Our oldest female Black-chinned in Palisade was at least 9 years 2 months old.

https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/longev...evity_main.cfm

[buffalobo]

This is the peak of season for hummingbirds in the mountains of Colorado. Yesterday we fed 9 gallons of sugar water to thousands of birds of three species.

On Tuesday I caught a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird that I had banded as an adult on July 28, 2010, 5 days short of nine years ago. This would make her at least 10 years and 2 months old, our oldest Broad-tailed and our oldest hummingbird recapture to date. Pretty exciting! She was also interesting in that she had "leucistic" white feathers in the forecrown and no iridescent gorget feathers which we associate with older females.

At 10 yrs 2 months old, our Broad-tailed Hummingbird record is two years short of the record of 12 years, 1 month old, set in 1976 in Colorado.

Two weeks ago a bird bander in Idaho recaptured a female Black-chinned Hummingbird he banded as an adult in June 2008. She is at least 12 years and one month old and breaks the Black-chinned longevity record by almost a year. Our oldest female Black-chinned in Palisade was at least 9 years 2 months old.

https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/longev...evity_main.cfm

Very cool. How do you catch them?

[Bailey Guns]

That's quite a six-pack on that scorpion.

[ChickNorris]

Very cool. How do you catch them?

This^^^

[TRnCO]

Yesterday we fed 9 gallons of sugar water to thousands of birds of three species.

Holy sugar water batman. Feeding hummers up there sounds almost like a job.

Our numbers seem to be down a bit this year. I only run two feeders and this summer I'm not even filling them all the way up because it takes too long for them to drink it before I need to change/clean the feeder. Last year was a high in numbers for us.
Never knew they lived that long.