Using WhatBird, I was able to identify a really beautiful hummingbird I saw in my garden today as a Rufous Hummingbird. It seems that these guys breed in the Pacific Northwest and spend the winter in Mexico, so he must have been taking a break in my Southern California garden on his way to Mexico.
Some interesting facts I learned from WhatBird:
- The Rufous Hummingbird has the longest migration route of all North American hummingbirds.
- This bird has an excellent memory for location. They have been observed investigating where an absent feeder was located the previous year.
- A group of hummingbirds has many collective nouns, including a “bouquet”, “glittering”, “hover”, “shimmer”, and “tune” of hummingbirds.
