{"id":86245,"date":"2020-06-13T05:24:47","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T11:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=86245"},"modified":"2020-06-13T09:42:37","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T15:42:37","slug":"male-broad-tailed-hummingbird-same-bird-same-perch-two-years-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/13\/male-broad-tailed-hummingbird-same-bird-same-perch-two-years-running\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Broad-tailed Hummingbird – Same Bird, Same Perch Two Years Running?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps it’s a long shot but I can’t help but wonder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Three days ago on June 10 I photographed this grumpy looking male Broad-tailed Hummingbird in the Wasatch Mountains. He’s perched on a distinctive vertical stem of a serviceberry bush with out of focus willows in the far background. I’ve found him on this perch on several different days recently.<\/p>\n

Over time I’ve become very familiar with this perch and I have to wonder if this particular hummingbird knows it much better than I do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I photographed this male Broad-tailed Hummingbird on the same serviceberry stem very close to one year ago, on June 4, 2019,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is the same bird on the same day as he returned to the perch after chasing off another hummingbird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And here he is on the same perch two weeks later, on June 18 last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And this is him on the same serviceberry stem eighteen days later, on July 5, 2019.<\/p>\n

In fact I found this male on this same perch at least a dozen times last summer. He could be found there reliably so obviously it was his favorite perch to defend his territory from.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I like to compare changes in natural perches from year to year so three days ago (on the same day the first photo above was taken) I took this shot, sans hummingbird, to show as much of the perch as I could get in the frame. I’m looking down on the vertical twig so I didn’t have enough depth of field to get the bottom of it sharp but it’s sharp enough for my purposes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m not sure why but I keep wondering if it could be the same bird both years. A little research suggests that it’s possible. Cornell’s Birds of the World says that the same Broad-tailed Hummingbird “may hold a territory all summer, even for several successive years” and that one male held the same territory for three years running.<\/p>\n

Just because it’s known to happen doesn’t mean it’s happening here but I like to think it is.<\/p>\n

That way I can consider him an old but grumpy friend. I have a few of those, most without feathers.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Addendum: My friend Neil Rossmiller just made this comment on this post on Facebook: “Sometimes I wake up Grumpy, sometimes I just let her sleep.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Made me smile so I thought I’d share.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps it’s a long shot but I can’t help but wonder.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,4082],"tags":[2202,5184,2203,4140,311],"class_list":["post-86245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-broad-tailed-hummingbirds","tag-broad-tailed-hummingbird","tag-same-territory-different-years","tag-selasphorus-platycercus","tag-serviceberry","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/broad-tailed-hummingbird-3825-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-mr3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}