Jeanie Pousson was kind enough to let me photograph her hummer in Moss Bluff this morning. It zoomed about her yard for a while, set in the crepe myrtle tree nearby and finally came to rest on the feeder. It appears to be a Rufous Hummingbird but I'm not certain.(Left-Click to Enlarge)
To my surprise there was a band on its little right foot. It reads either H82 or H8Z. Hopefully one of the hummer experts knows something about it.
And another ... this appears to be a female Rufous Hummingbird. How cute she is !
Tom,
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures! The band number definitely starts with H82 (there's only one letter on a hummingbird band, and it's the first character; it's followed by 5 digits). This helps narrow it down a little, but if there's any way you could get permission to take more pictures that might show more of the band, we may be able to identify it precisely.
Back in October Nancy banded a Buff-bellied Hummingbird in Baton Rouge and color-marked it. A bird with the same color mark showed up in Lafayette a few weeks later, and Dave Patton was able to photograph the bird several times - since the band rotates freely around the bird's leg, eventually he was able to piece the number together and confirm it was the same bird. The bird hung around several days and then disappeared, only to reappear at the original host's house in Baton Rouge - she had not realized the bird was gone at all.
So more pictures would be an ENORMOUS help if you could manage them!