[obol] additional hummer photos

[DAVID IRONS]

Greetings All,

After more than 30 years of birding, I tend to trust the basic "eyeball" test on potentially unusual birds.  I tend to look at birds and trust my initial instincts about their identity.  That being said, my first response to these pictures was, "why isn't this an Anna's Hummingbird.?"  I don't have to work very hard coming up reasons why it is an Anna's.  It is somewhat dingy and grayish below, shows quite a bit of green vesting, it has a partial throat patch, and the bill appears neither particularly thin or very curved.  Conversely, I have to use some serious creative thinking to even entertain the notion that it is a Costa's.  It isn't whitish below, it has a throat patch, much of the crown and parts of the back appear to have strong bronzish cast rather than a greener look I would expect on a Costa's.  

My personal rule in these types of cases is, if I have to work very hard to convince myself it is the less expected species, then it probably isn't.  I'm not always right, but I find it to works well most of the time.  Call it Dave's Razor.

Generally speaking, most bird photos are readily identifiable to species as long as they are in decent focus.  However, this is often not the case with female hummingbirds.  Variations in lighting, camera angle and other factors often make the same individual bird look quite different from image to image rendering certain identification of an individual shots, or series of shots, near impossible.

Dave Irons
Eugene, OR   
 
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