Animal Life in the Yosemite
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THE BIRDS

ALLEN HUMMINGBIRD. Selasphorus alleni Henshaw

Field characters.—As for Rufous Hummingbird (which see), but in adult male back green. In hand, the next to middle pair of tail feathers in the adult male are plain (not notched as in the Rufous) and, in both sexes, at all ages, the outermost tail feather on each side is narrow, not more than 2 millimeters wide.

Occurrence.—Sparse transient. Two immature individuals collected at Dudley, 6 miles east of Coulterville, August 5 and 10, 1920.

The Allen Hummingbird is a breeding bird of the coastal district of California, but at the conclusion of nesting both adults and young range widely before departing southward. The flower garden on the Dudley ranch, 6 miles east of Coulterville, is a mecca for many hummingbirds; the "red hot poker plants" are particularly attractive. Among the species found to be represented there in August, 1920, were two individuals of the Allen Hummingbird collected on the 5th and 10th, respectively. One of these was in molt from juvenal to adult plumage; the tail feathers of the adult category showed the absence of notch, and were therefore characteristic of alleni. Both specimens showed very narrow outer tail feathers as compared with the distinctly broader ones in the same plumage stage of rufus.



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Animal Life in the Yosemite
©1924, University of California Press
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

grinnell/birds82.htm — 19-Jan-2006