[SBB] Black-chinned Hummingbirds

["Steve and Heather Rottenborn" <[[email protected]]>]

South Bay Birders,

We've had quite a wave of migrant Black-chinned Hummingbirds at our feeders 
in Morgan Hill this fall.  Last fall I only noted one in our yard.  This 
fall, since the first on 16 August, we've had approximately 13 individuals, 
with up to four different birds present in one day (that high was reached 
this evening, 16 September).  I've spent some time looking through the 20+ 
Anna's (usually with 1-2 Selasphorus as well) at our feeders almost every 
evening over the past month and gotten video of most of the Black-chins. 
Comparisons of plumage differences and timing of occurrence (i.e., gaps of 
4+ days between observations of similarly-plumaged birds) produced the 
estimate of 13 different birds.

Our yard is nothing special in terms of providing an attractant to migrant 
hummingbirds.  Perhaps our location at the western toe of the Diablo Range 
is in the path of migrating Black-chins, although I would not expect many 
individuals of this inland species (which has a relatively small breeding 
population in the northern Santa Clara Valley but otherwise breeds primarily 
east of the Inner Coast Range) to be migrating south through the Santa Clara 
Valley.  In any case, it's been fun (and instructive) studying these birds 
this fall.

On another note, I briefly checked the Guadalupe River between Montague 
Expwy. and Trimble Road on Wednesday morning (14 Sep.) -- one of the 
Northern Waterthrushes was still present in the overflow channel at the 
location described in my 7 September post.

Good birding,

Steve Rottenborn
Morgan Hill, CA
[[email protected]] 

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