New Hummingbirds

The first one I want to talk about is a hummingbird new to me and the second is new science.

One morning on our recent trip to Livermore, CA, as I was looking for wildlife before the first of the day's baseball games, I spied a speedy little bird. The movement suggested to me that it was a hummingbird. Quick, zoom in and try to get a shot! Luckily it was still early and the pretty little hummer decided to perch for a bit between short flights in one section of a tree. I was able to close in on foot and with my zoom I was able to snap several pictures before it took off on its daily journey. Upon inspection of my images I realized that the little hummer was different than the ruby throated ones I was used to seeing in TX. (The picture above is a female Ruby-throated hummer.) I'm sure it was an immature male or a female hummer. What I'm not positive about is what species it was. I'm currently leaning towards Broad-tailed hummingbird female even though Merlin seems to think that Anna's or Black-chinned is more likely.

I have included an image of this new to me hummingbird in my new Livermore nature set of note cards which I have titled "Morning Coffee Break".

The second hummingbird with a designation of new is one that was not totally unknown to science, just not properly distinguished from a close relative. It had been thought that the Bahama Woodstar species found in the Bahamas contained two subspecies. Upon closer inspection it became apparent that these two members of the Bee Hummingbird group were actually two distinct species, hence the designation as a new hummingbird. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a good article from which I learned about this and has more information on the topic.

Celebrate Pollinators During Pollinator Week

When I heard that this was National Pollinator Week (June 15-21, 2015) I decided to make a collage from some of my pollinator images to celebrate their beauty and hard work. It quickly became clear that I would have to severely limit what I included in the collage. I have quite a few images of different bees, butterflies and other insects seen busily gathering nectar and thereby pollinating a wide variety of flowers. I decided to limit this collage to a bird and some of the bees.

You can click on the image to see a larger view. I was going to do some research and identify the pollinators that I included in the collage. After finding out that there are 9 different bumblebees in Texas and a couple of insects that mimic them and because I included two pollinators that look to me somewhat like bees but I suppose they could be mimics too, I decided that IDing each one was beyond the scope of this post. I can tell you that the bottom right photo is of a European honey bee pollinating my blackberry flowers and the pollinator above that is a hummingbird. I think the upper left image is of a carpenter bee and the lower left is one of the 9 species of bumblebees that live in TX. If any of you know if that is correct or what those other two pollinators are, please let us know in the comments to this post.

National Pollinator Week was put into place by the U.S. Senate in 2007. They directed the Secretary of Agriculture to designate a week in June of each year as National Pollinator Week. Pollinators are vital to the production of crops and propagation of most plants. It is important that we strive to make a healthy ecosystem to support the pollinators.

If you want to attract pollinators to your yard, their needs are the same as for any other wildlife you want to attract. Provide shelter, water and food sources. To find out more about the specific needs of pollinators and to find out if there are any fun events planned for this week in your area, check out pollinator.org .

Help for Hummingbirds

Migratory creatures seem to be feeling the effects of climate change. Polar bears don’t have as much sea ice as they used to and if temperatures continue to change as they have been monarch butterflies may not receive the temperature signals needed to start them on their way back north. Another migratory species that may need to adapt quickly due to climate change so as not to diminish is the hummingbird. Climate change effects the bloom time of its nectar sources which provide energy for its annual migrations. However, there may be ways you can help hummingbirds as changes happen to their environment.

The Audubon Society has a new citizen scientist project designed to bolster current research by documenting the feeding patterns of hummingbirds. You can find out much more information about why researchers are concerned about hummingbirds and about Audubon’s new Hummingbirds at Home Program at this link. That page also has links to find out about two other Audubon citizen scientist programs, the Christmas Bird Count and the Great Backyard Bird Count.

Many research projects require simply too much data to be collected for an accurate study for one scientist or even group of scientists to collect. Often this data is something that the public is very capable of providing to the researchers for analysis. If you have some time to contribute, please consider joining other citizen scientists as they gather data for researchers to understand what types of changes are currently affecting the world we and creatures such as hummingbirds live in.

(I took the first photo in my backyard and the other at a park in San Angelo.)