HUMMINGBIRDS: RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD 
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tip. (Females with characters less marked.) Adult male: Elongated gorget brilliant 
metallic scarlet , orange, or golden-green; body mainly bright reddish brown , glossed with 
bronze-green on crown and sometimes back , and fading to white on chest; tail feathers 
rufous, with terminal dark mesial streaks; wing quills dusky, faintly glossed with 
purplish; iris dark brown, bill black, feet dusky. Adult female: Upperparts metallic 
bronze-green, tail feathers with brown at base, middle feathers bronze-green , more or 
less brown at base , next pair with more than basal half brown , then bronze-green, end¬ 
ing in purplish black, three outer pairs broadly tipped with white, widely banded with 
black, usually adjoined by green; throat and chest dull whitish, throat usually with a 
few brilliant feathers; sides shaded with rufous. Young male: Similar to adult 
female but usually with more rufous in upper tail coverts and tail and a few glittering 
ruby feathers in the throat. Not fully mature males have a wash of green on the 
back. Young female: Similar to adult female but feathers of upperparts indistinctly 
tipped with brown or buffy, and throat spotted or streaked with bronzy, as in young 
male. 
Comparisons. —The females of rufus and platycercus can be distinguished by 
the rufous sides in rufus and also by the coloration of the tail feathers in the two 
species. (See Comparisons, p. 353.) 
Range. —Breeds in Canadian and Transition Zones from southern coast of 
Alaska (lat. 61°), southern Yukon, British Columbia, and western Alberta south to 
higher mountains of southwestern Montana, southern Idaho, and northwestern 
California; winters in southern Mexico, from Colima and Mexico south to Oaxaca; 
in migration east to Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and central western Texas. 
State Records. —There seems to be no known instance of the Rufous Humming¬ 
bird nesting in Arizona, Colorado, or New' Mexico though the species has been in¬ 
cluded in the breeding lists of these States for the last thirty years. In each of these 
States it occurs in fall migration and in New Mexico it is exceedingly abundant at 
that season. The fact that it is unknown in spring in both New Mexico and Colorado 
increases the probability that all statements of breeding are errors, based on the 
presence of the bird so early in the fall that it has been assumed that it must breed 
not far distant. Fall migration begins during what would be the nesting season for 
the related species platycercus, and the earliest record for New Mexico is that of one 
taken July 7, 1905, at Gallup (Hollister). Even this early date allows an abundance 
of time for the raising of the first brood, since the eggs are usually laid before the 
middle of May and sometimes as early as March. It is most probable, however, that 
these very early migrants are birds whose eggs or young have been destroyed. [A 
specimen was taken at Silver City, July 28, 1918 (Kellogg).] Though common in 
late July the species reaches the height of its abundance in early August, at which 
time it is common from about 5,000 feet as at Apache (Anthony), and the Little 
Florida Mountains (Goldman), to 12,600 feet over the saddle of Truchas Peak above 
timberline (Bailey). It was reported from Santa Fe in August, 1851 (Woodhouse). 
The early part of September finds many of the birds gone toward their winter quar¬ 
ters, but others remain a little later and were noted at Penasco to September 6, 1902 
(Hollister); Willis, September 15, 1SS3 (Henshaw); [usually common in theSangre de 
Cristos in late August and September and several seen during spring and summer 
(Jensen, 1925 and 1920) ]; in the Burro Mountains, September 18, 1908 (Goldman); 
at Magdalena September 16, 1899 (Fitch); and at Albuquerque until September 21, 
1899 (Birtwell).—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —In bushes, as in salal and einamox, in trees (on dead spruce limbs covered 
with lichens), and in ferns, or vines overhanging embankments; made of down and 
decorated with fine mosses, lichens, and shreds of bark. Eggs: 2, white. 
