Broad-tailed Hummingbird

About the Broad-tailed Hummingbird

A hummingbird of the high western mountains, the male Broad-tailed Hummingbird glitters green above with a brilliant rose-magenta throat, while the female is green with buffy, spotted sides. Its signature is sound as much as color: the male's wings produce a loud, cricket-like metallic trill in flight that announces him long before you see him.

Broad-tails feed at mountain wildflowers and will readily visit feeders, hovering and darting with the pugnacity typical of hummingbirds, the males defending rich flower patches fiercely.

In Texas they are warm-season birds of the Trans-Pecos highlands, breeding in the cool canyons and meadows of ranges like the Davis Mountains and Big Bend, present through the summer before moving south.

A note from behind the lens: listen for that wing-trill to locate a male, then find the flowers or perch he favors and wait. A high shutter speed freezes the wings, but a touch of side light on the gorget is what makes that rose throat flare to life.