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Date Posted: 05:37:00 11/02/02 Sat
Author: Greg
Author Host/IP: cblmdm204-118-190-149.buckeye-express.com / 204.118.190.149
Subject: Ohio's first Calliope Hummingbird

This, from Jim McCormac-
**********************


Last Wednesday, October 30, a resident of Chillicothe, Ohio, reported a
hummingbird visiting her flowerbeds and hummingbird feeder, and thinking it
might be something unusual, alerted a few local birders. They visited the
site, found the bird, and took some pictures and made observations,
concluding it was not a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and thought that it might
be a Rufous Hummingbird. The bird clearly was NOT an adult male, and was
either a hatch-year male or female, or adult female. These subadult/female
hummingbirds - particularly in the genus Selasphorus, such as Rufous is in -
are very tricky to ID, and way out-of-range birds have to be looked at quite
critically and often catching them for measurement purposes seems to be the
only way to satisfactorily and positively identify them. Anyway, one of the
birders e-mailed the images to myself and a bander with considerable
hummingbird expertise for an opinion. Even though the pictures didn't show
all of the characters necessary for identification - often these features
can't easily be captured on film with free-flying birds - I felt that there
were features that suggested Calliope Hummingbird, and that it certainly
wasn't a Ruby-throated. The bander felt the same way, and at the request of
one of the local birders, agreed to try and capture it to determine the
identification. This morning, the bird was caught, and measurements were
taken that conclusively identified it as a Calliope Hummingbird, the state's
first record. Unfortunately, during the process of working with the bird, it
expired. It's important to note that it's death wasn't brought about by
improper handling or any lack of care on the part of the bander -
examination of the specimen revealed very low body fat, and the bird
probably had other health-related issues as well, which might not be
surprising given how far out-of-range it was. The bander has extensive
experience working with hummers, and was extremely careful in his handling
of it, and it was only in captivity for a few minutes. It also should be
noted that mortality during banding operations is very, very low. In fact,
the Logan County hummingbird just posted by Donna Daniel was caught and
banded about a month ago, and is still present and visiting her feeder.

While this bird's death is very unfortunate, I don't think blame should be
placed on anyone for what happened. Those involved felt that this was the
best way to quickly and absolutely determine the identification, and given
that capture of hummers has been done many times with no problems, certainly
didn't anticipate that anything would go wrong. It's quite likely that this
bird's probable poor health would have made survival of the upcoming frigid
nights unlikely. Furthermore, nobody wanted to put out word to the birding
community until there was a positive identification, as there was still a
big question as to what the bird was. Also, no one knew how the homeowner
might feel about having large numbers of people visit her house, if indeed
the bird turned out to be something really rare. So, today during the course
of trying to work these things out, the situation took this sad twist. By
capturing the bird, it was determined that it was a hatch-year male Calliope
Hummingbird - critical measurements eliminate everything else - and that
it's body fat was very low, a 1 on a scale of 0 to 3. The specimen will be
deposited with the bird collections at the Ohio State University. There are
scattered records from the east of Calliope - New York, New Jersey,
Illinois, the Carolinas...

I'm really sorry to have to report such an unfortunate event, but thought
that it was important that everyone know the facts behind this story right
away.

Jim McCormac
Columbus, Ohio

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