Green-backed Firecrown (Southernmost Hummingbird)

[Donkees]

The Green-backed Firecrown (Sephanoides sephanoides), is the southernmost species of the hummingbirds family and the only one living out of tropical regions. They live on the cold Andean-Patagonian forests, from South Mendoza to Tierra del Fuego, being the only nectarivore bird on theses forests. They are then strangers, representatives of the tropical birds in this cold and mountainous world. That might be the reason why for the Mapuche culture hummingbirds are related with trips across supernatural worlds. The male has a bright red crown, sometimes turning into orange or even yellow. The female lacks this colored crown, so it is easy to distinguish them. They nest on humid and dark spots, always near the ground. Both parents build a tiny nest, using moss and lichen fibers, hanging them from bush branches.

[niyad]

1. Lovely.

[jaxexpat]

2. Identifiable by their drawl and preference for SWEET tea.

[ihaveaquestion]

3. Only one living out of tropical regions?

I'm pretty sure Oregon isn't considered "tropical" and we have Anna's Hummingbird living here year round. I know cause I feed em.

https://audubonportland.org/go-outside/annas-hummingbird/

[RainCaster]

6. I wondered about that, too

We have the Anna's year round in WA, too. However, we still have Anna's & Rufous that migrate through each year between Mexico and Alaska.

[Donkees]

7. Excerpt from the thread "Anna's Hummingbird and Snow"

https://democraticunderground.com/12089726

Anna's hummingbirds have been overwintering at higher latitudes only for the last few decades. Prior to the 1930s, it nested no farther north than San Francisco Bay and was not reported north of the Oregon border until 1944. The bird reached Seattle in 1964 and today breeds on Vancouver Island and is found in southeastern Alaska regularly.

Their journey north appears to have begun with the appearance, and then northward establishment, of another species: the blue gum eucalyptus tree from Australia. First introduced to southern California in the 1870s for shade, lumber, and railroad ties, and later used for lumber and orange-grove windbreaks, the tree is now naturalized in the coastal areas of southern California and the San Francisco Bay region. Areas of the state that were once treeless plains are now savannahs or long-abandoned plantations of blue gum.

The tree’s nectar-rich flowers bloom in the winter. Anna’s Hummingbird is one of only two native wildlife species that appear to find value in the tree. The Monarch butterfly, which uses it as a winter roost, is the other. Taking advantage of a developing urban horticulture in the Los Angeles Basin, Anna’s found it could now live year-round in the lowlands of southern California and later move north to the Bay area as blue gum groves there matured.

In their original southern California habitat, Anna’s Hummingbirds rely on chaparral and gooseberry, both with long growing seasons, but they readily forage on exotics provided by local nurseries. The birds have simply shifted north to capitalize on the profusion of urban gardens in the Pacific Northwest. The Seattle area’s locally large populations of eastern gray squirrels and American Crows have similarly adapted to the regional shift from conifer forest to the combined native and exotic deciduous trees.

https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/species-profiles/annas-hummingbird-our-winter-hummingbird/

[Ligyron]

4. Yeah, that's clearly wrong as there are plenty of Hummingbirds outside the tropics in N.A.

Maybe it refers only to South American species?

[cab67]

8. that would also be misleading, though

plenty of hummingbirds at higher altitudes in South America. Maybe in tropical "regions," but far from tropical settings.

[Rebl2]

5. Little

Flying jewels!!!

[panader0]

9. Right out my window are the Huachuca Mountains, home to many varieties of hummers,

some which exist only there. Many year back I was the general contractor on the Audubon Society
Research Ranch Headquarters in nearby Elgin, Az.
https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas/huachuca-mountains-coronado-national-forest

[Donkees]

10. The ''rare neo-tropical species'' hummingbirds mentioned there are listed as travelers ...

or visitors.

''The Berylline Hummingbird first appeared in the U.S. in 1964. Since then it has become almost a regular visitor, with one or two found almost every summer in the mountains of southeastern Arizona.''
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/berylline-hummingbird

White-eared Hummingbird: Abundant at times in the high mountain forests of Mexico, this little jewel is an uncommon visitor to the southwestern United States. In southern Arizona canyons where hummingbird feeders are maintained, lone White-eareds sometimes show up and remain for weeks at a time. Although the species has been known as a summer visitor to Arizona at least since the 1890s, there have been few proven records of its actually having nested there.
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/white-eared-hummingbird