Feisty rufous hummingbirds return
Feisty, small, tenacious, fast, belligerent, pugnacious, relentless, aggressive and beautiful are just a few of the terms used to describe the rufous hummingbird. If you’ve noticed a bossy hummingbird, orange in color, chasing other hummingbirds away from your feeder lately, that’s the rufous.
We don’t see the rufous early in the summer. They come in July and we see them into the fall. The rufous migrate north from Mexico in the spring, following the Pacific Coast up through California, settling to nest in the Pacific Northwest all the way up to southern Alaska.
In early July, the male starts south, but takes a different route than he did in the spring. Rufous follow the Rocky Mountains home to Mexico, feasting on flowers as they go. The females head south a little later than the males and the juveniles bring up the rear. We don’t see the same rufous week after week, but rather a continuous wave of different rufous as they migrate through.
Here are just a few fun facts about the fascinating rufous hummingbird:
Their hearts beat up to 1,250 times per minute.
The rufous makes one of the longest migratory journeys of any bird in the world, 3,900 miles each way from Mexico to as far north as Alaska, totaling up to 7,800 miles. They follow a clockwise circuit of the West.
They beat their wings up to 60 times per second.
They are 2.8 to 3.5 inches long, weighing between 2 to 5 grams, depending upon the time of year. Just before migration, hummingbirds bulk up.
Rufous hummingbirds, both male and female, are extremely territorial and will chase away bigger hummingbirds.
They have even been seen chasing off animals as large as chipmunks.
They nest farther north than any hummingbird.
Because of their extremely long migration route, they play an important role in pollinating various plant species in a very wide area.
Like other hummingbirds, the rufous feed on nectar from colorful, tubular flowers including columbine, scarlet gilia, penstemon, Indian paintbrush, larkspurs and more, but get protein and fat from eating insects like gnats, flies and aphids from plants.
When food is scarce or temperatures are very low, the rufous, like other hummingbirds, can enter a state of torpor, whereby they slow their metabolism way down to conserve energy. In torpor, the body temperature of the rufous can drop from 105 degrees to 70 degrees and their heart rate lowers considerably.