Gold Hummingbird
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Gold Hummingbird, Selasphorus
helios L 7-8 cm, WS 10-11 cm, Family: Trochilidae
IUCN Conservation Status: Least
concern (LC)
Description:
Small
hummingbird with slim, straight bill. Pointed tail extends past wing tips when
perched. Breeding males are bright, iridescent yellow with an iridescent red
throat patch, or gorget, white breast band and cinnamon belly. Highly Sexually
dimorphic, females lack gorget and are green above and pale whitish below with
a cinnamon rump. Juveniles appear like females, but juvenile males will begin
to show yellow and gorget feathers in patches.
Sounds:
Both
sexes emit sharp chips in a fast series as a warning to other birds and
while foraging. Especially agitated birds will make a faster, trill-like zip.
Males perform a display dive to attract females during which they make a chu-chu-chu-zeet
sound. Like all hummingbirds, they produce a hum while flapping their
wings, though the Gold’s hum is typically louder than in most species. Males
also produce a higher pitched trill in their wings during courtship displays.
Range and Habitat:
Summer
range encompasses entirety of Novasola. In winter they migrate to lower
elevations and avoid the prairie and northern coast. Commonly inhabits open areas
like alpine meadows, forest clearings and edges, swamps, savannah, and are
common in manmade areas like parks, yards, gardens, and orchards. They can also
be found in mature forests, grassland and scrubland, and alpine tundra.
Discussion:
Despite
their miniscule size, Gold Hummingbirds might be the feistiest of Novasolan
endemic birds. Extremely protective of food sources, they will chase away or
attack not only any other hummingbird, but even at times take on larger birds,
some five times their size. Their aggression notwithstanding, Gold Hummingbirds
are incredibly popular among bird enthusiasts and are a common site at most
feeders and are included as images on everything from greeting cards to city
murals.
Like
most hummingbirds, Gold Hummingbirds must feed frequently and consistently throughout
the day. Studies have shown that they consume about half their body weight in
nectar each day, which is necessary to power their incredibly fast metabolisms.
Their diet consists of high-sugar nectar from flowers, especially tubular
flowers like columbine, Indian paintbrush, larkspurs, gilia, currants, and
manzanita. They are attracted to bright colors, especially reds, and many
native plants have coevolved with hummingbirds to produce brilliant scarlet flowers
that can be pollinated only by hummingbirds. Golds usually hover while drinking
nectar but may perch to do so where possible. To reach the nectar, hummingbirds
will insert their long bills into the flower and lap up the nectar with an
incredibly long and sticky tongue. One of the greatest food sources for Gold Hummingbirds
in more developed areas are backyard feeders. Hummers in suburban or urban
areas rely heavily on bird feeders and will defend them insistently. At night,
hummingbirds will enter a state of torpor to conserve energy.
When
a Gold Hummingbird finds a reliable or good food source, it will establish a
territory around it and defend it from all intruders. Males are more aggressive,
so often they guard the best territories while females are pushed to areas with
less food access, like the edges of meadows as opposed to the dense center. Most
of any day is spent either drinking or perched near the food source waiting to
ward off other hummingbirds. Males will even chase away larger birds and
rodents. In response, juveniles and females will sometimes travel in groups so
that while some are distracting the defending bird, others may reach the food.
Gold Hummingbirds are sexually dimorphic, meaning males and females appear
differently, more so than most other North American hummingbirds. Most
obviously, males are bright, iridescent gold with rufous undersides while
females have dull green backs, rufous rumps, and white undersides, but the
differences are more extreme. Males are smaller and have shorter wings, but
longer bills. It’s thought that females have evolved longer wings and larger
sizes to compensate for the fact that males often have access to the best
territories. Longer wings and bodies allow females to fly more efficiently and
conserve more energy as they forage greater distances between feedings. Females
are thus also better long-distance fliers and are more likely to migrate
greater distances in the fall and spring. Kosatka Island sees an influx of hummingbirds
each breeding season, who must fly over 150 kilometers over ocean to get there,
and research has suggested that a disproportionately high number of those
migrants are females.
During
courtship, males will perform elaborate display flights for females. These
flights consist of large loops and steep dives, followed by a side-to-side
hovering motion. During these flights males produce distinctive high-pitched
buzzing sound from their wings. If impressed, the female will breed and then
fly off to build the nest. Only the female cares for the eggs and young. Nests
are tiny, and usually made of lichen, animal hair, and spider webs; they are
often placed high in densely foliated trees. Eggs are only about a centimeter
long.
A
common sight in Novasola’s parks and gardens, the Gold Hummingbird is a crowd
favorite for its bright plumage, acrobatic flight, and charisma. They are
perhaps the most bold, combative, and dynamic bird on the island. Originally
described by George York Baker in 1761, Gold Hummingbirds were well-known by
the time of the NRC expeditions.
“The
garden, if it can be so called, outside my schoolhouse office was visited this
morning by the most splendid of springtime sights: a brilliant Gold Hummingbird. Though I did endeavor to watch the creature flit about the fresh
blossoms, my eyes had less success than my ears. These birds, which can so
easily be missed, move with a rapidity which can render them nearly invisible
to all but the most focused eye. Their proximity is betrayed, however, by the
incessant and salient humming of their tiny wings, from which the group is so
justly named. As quickly as the bird had appeared it had explored the flowers
and fled, a momentary sunburst which left me with little time in which to bask.”–
Personal journal, March 19, 1902
“The
valleys here are foliated by willows, alders, cottonwoods, and all manner of
riverside herbs and grasses, while the uplands are sparsely forested in oak. In
both terrain the springtime wildflowers are in full bloom. Where the flowers
are especially dense they are paired without fail by the dazzling shines of male
Gold Hummingbirds. I have counted fifteen individuals buzzing hastily about on
my morning walk between our camp and the wooded knoll half a mile upstream.” –
Expedition log, April 8, 1903
“Mighty
Apollo might not have dreamt of a more exaggerated impression of his splendor
than that given by the Gold Hummingbird. The aurum glow and crimson flash of
male shimmers like burning embers in the noontime sun.
…
Unlike
many of the mainland hummingbirds, the Gold Hummingbird does not make
long-distance migrations at the turn of seasons. Resident year round in the
Fastwaters, they avoid the harshest winters only by migrating to lower
elevations and lower latitudes on the island. The glaciers of the Steller Range
are inhospitable to the birds during the cold months, but the relative mildness
of the southern coast is far more agreeable. The greatest concentrations of Gold Hummingbirds, regardless of season, seems to be the valleys of the Castor and
Pollux rivers.
…
Far
from timid, these feisty creatures will make no retreat from an approaching
man. Many times I have come within arm’s length of a bird, or a bird has come
so to me, with little hesitance or fear. Indeed, the birds are more likely to
berate and attack men than to flee from them. Should I be unfortunate enough to
cross between a hummingbird and the gilia flowers under my office window I will
be met with the whirring buzzes and excited chirps of a guard unpleased. Their
aggression is aimed most at members of their own kind, however. Much fun can be
had watching rival hummingbirds wage war over a flowerbed. And war it is, for
as the scale might be miniscule, the conflicts are no less violent. I have
encountered numerous hummingbirds which lay dead from injuries inflicted during
these bouts.” – Native Birds of Novasola, 1912