Rufous Hummingbird

A male rufous hummingbird in Island Park.

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The broad-tailed hummingbird was feeding noisily at the feeder when a bolt of copper shot from the sky right toward it.  Flashes of red, green and orange filled the air as the two miniature flying knights battled it out. In a few seconds, the broad-tailed hummingbird gave up and raced away. In his place, the victor, a male rufous hummingbird, now dined from the clear red feeder.

Rufous hummingbirds are delightful tiny birds, full of attitude and dressed like kings and queens. I have seen most of the species of hummingbirds in North America and would have to say that the rufous is arguably the prettiest. The male has a white breast, but the rest of him, including his gorget, is mostly a color that can be described as copper, rusty, orange, or rufous. The female is a mix of rufous, green, and gray and is striking in her own right.

According to the range map in my Audubon app, Island Park is at the extreme southern breeding range of this hummingbird. On the other hand, this species is the most northerly breeding hummingbird, reaching as far north as Valdez, Alaska. They winter as far south as Central America, making them the longest distance migrants when body size is considered. That takes some explanation. According to Audubon, a rufous hummer migrating from the top of its range to the bottom of its range (3,900 miles) will travel 78.5 million body lengths while the famed, but much larger, Arctic tern's one-way flight of about 11,185 mi is only 51.4 million body lengths.

So, during migration, it should not be uncommon to see rufous hummingbirds in the mountain states or California. Leave out a few feeders and you might just have a rufous hummer move in for a week or two. However, during the summer this year, I was consistently seeing reports of rufous hummingbirds from around southern Idaho. I also noted that some of the photos on the Audubon app were taken in mid-summer in Utah and Arizona. That doesn’t match well with the range map in the app.

It appears that while the rufous hummingbird is declining in numbers (“populations declined across their range by approximately 2% per year resulting in a cumulative decline of about 67% between 1966 and 2019, according to theNorth American Breeding Bird Survey” Cornell University, allaboutbirds.org) largely due to habitat loss, it is also apparently expanding its range, looking for new places to breed and to winter. For instance, reports of wintering rufous hummingbirds in the Gulf states are becoming common. All this does tend to disagree with Audubon climate modeling that predicts that rufous hummingbird is one of the species projected to lose non-breeding range in the United States. The model also projects that the summer range will move northward due to climate change, with unknown impacts to its core winter range in Mexico (National Audubon Society 2015). But then, models are just models and perhaps rufous hummingbirds are going to find a way.

If you are along the California coast in mid-summer, you may swear that you are seeing rufous hummingbirds, far outside their range. In the springtime it certainly may be a rufous as their migration is a clockwise circular pattern, up the coast in the spring and down through the mountain states in fall. However, it might also be an Allen’s hummingbird you are seeing. The two are so similar that the only sure way to tell is to get a good look at the tail feathers which are broader on the rufous male. Right. That sounds about as easy as counting scales on a salmon as it jumps a waterfall.

Rufous hummingbirds are fearless wonders, challenging other hummers twice their size and even driving off mammals such as chipmunks. But for all their bluster, beauty, and charm, they are considered one of the birds “most at risk for extinction without significant conservation actions to reverse declines and reduce threats.” Surely, we can do that to keep this amazing bird around.

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Help Idaho Wildlife

When we traveled across the state in October 2017, most of the vehicles we saw using the wildlife management areas did not have wildlife plates. Buying wildlife plates is a great way for non-hunters and hunters alike to support wildlife-based recreation like birding.

C'mon folks, let's help Idaho's wildlife by proudly buying and displaying a wildlife license plate on each of our vehicles! 

See below for information on Idaho plates. Most states have wildlife plates so if you live outside Idaho, check with your state's wildlife department or vehicle licensing division for availability of state wildlife plates where you live. 

And tell them that you heard about it from Nature-track.com!

Wildlife License Plates

Great news! as of 2024, there are three NEW designs for license plates. They still are bluebird, cutthroat trout and elk, but they are beautiful.

Idaho Wildlife license plates provide essential funding that benefits the great diversity of native plants and wildlife that are not hunted, fished or trapped—over 10,000 species or 98% of Idaho’s species diversity. Game species that share the same habitats (such as elk, deer, antelope, sage-grouse, salmon, trout) also benefit from these specialty plates.

No state tax dollars are provided for wildlife diversity, conservation education and recreation programs. Neither are any revenues from the sale of hunting or fishing licenses spent on nongame species. Instead, these species depend on direct donations, federal grants, fundraising initiatives—and the Idaho Wildlife license plates.

Both my vehicles have Bluebird Plates. I prefer the bluebird because the nongame program gets 70 percent of the money from bluebird plates, but only 60 percent of the money from elk and trout plates - 10 percent of the money from elk plates supports wildlife disease monitoring and testing programs (to benefit the livestock industry) and 10 percent from cutthroat plates supports non-motorized boat access.

Incidentally, in 2014, the Idaho Legislature denied the Department of Fish and Game the ability to add new plates or even to change the name of the elk and cutthroat plates (very specific) to wildlife and fish plates, a move that would have allowed for changing images occasionally and generating more revenue. It would seem that they believe that we Idahoans don't want a well funded wildlife program.

I think it is time we let the Legislature know that Idahoan support wildlife funding and that we would like to see these generic plates come to fruition.