Every have one of those to-dos that stares you in the face and it just hangs around and around and around? In my latest situation it was an item on my read list. It has been there since 2019, finally got it as gift this last Christmas and then dragged it on two long trips out west and managed to get through maybe 2 chapters at best. Got back, put it on my nightstand, said goodnight to it every night and promised to turn the pages ….the next night. Even more embarrassing it was about building good habits and breaking bad one. The book – Atomic Habits by James Clear (link here). In my defense, I was keeping up on his thought provoking emails in the midst of this (think he stopped sending those or I got dropped somehow through 2025). My summary, probably would have been more useful while I was still in the grind as my “habits” have shifted a bit and maybe honing them isn’t as critical. I do like the core principles, Make it Obvious, Make it Attractive, Make it Easy and Make it Satisfying, however, my big takeaway was his take on boredom . “Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. It’s the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference. Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way“. That rang absolutely true with me as I always tell people my superpower is the ability to grind in work (formerly) and sport (ultras). Overall, not a bad read, although, I would recommend first consuming my favorite book – Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter (link here) or Do Hard Things by Steve Magness (link here). Those two offerings pretty much summarize my long held outlook on life.
Steve focuses on developing mental toughness and Michael challenges you to participate in activities you have a 50% chance of absolute failure even with focused training (misogi)…and now you know why I do the things I do ha. Why bring all this up..well, because I am about to do something in this post that is hard, which I should make more of a habit of and yes, there is high probability of failure. Today we are taking on the female Hummingbirds!
Before digging into this, I found myself quoting Theron from 300: “This will not be over quickly, you will not enjoy this, you suck at female Hummers“…or something like that. Hit the jump to see the fruits of my misery ha.
For starters, I am just going to focus on the Hummingbirds I featured in the Arizona Hummingbird series from last month. I felt bad about glossing over the females of those species because they are “difficult”. To Clear’s credit, let’s break that bad habit and take this challenge head on starting with the female Violet-Crowned Hummingbird above {imagine that being said while displaying my well-honed uber-confident expression just daring anyone to counter}. You may be asking yourself “Why is he so confident” after noting my previous hesitation in this realm. Answer, because I used my well-honed confident expression and (as I always tell my staff) if you ID with authority and don’t blink it is likely no one will counter you in the field hehehehe. Truth is the female and males Violet-Crowned Hummingbirds look alike so unless you have inside information, it would be nearly impossible to argue against.
Now that one is admittedly an easy one to kick off with so I’ll give you a bonus look at a situation where there is a difference and that is in the immatures.
Immature Violet-Crowned Hummingbirds have a brown head with limited to no coloring on the crown or back of the neck. They still have fairly clean and white bellies and the black-tipped orange bill as you can see in these two shots.
That covers the easy one, the rest is pure on misogi and all feedback in the comments section is encouraged – just be sure and include your reasoning so we can all learn together. Okay, this next one has a fairly clean throat relative to its male counterpart. Harder to see from this shot, but also very clean and whitish through the belly and the bill is solid black. To me, the key indicator is the white coloring on the tips of the tail feathers.
When expanded, the outer three feathers on each side of the tail will have large white spots on them – in the shot above, they are folded in, but you can make out the overall whiteness on the inner tail as a whole. Those indicators convey to me it is a female Black-Chinned Hummingbird.
Now let’s take a look at the next specimen. Being a relative characteristic, I will tell you that this is a very large bodied Hummingbird which practically gives it away on its own. Also hard to tell in this shot (apologies), but the bill is long, straight and black. Green coloring above, with a grey wash through the chest/belly.
In this particular case, the small white streak behind the eye seals the deal for me that this likely a female Rivoli’s Hummingbird. See this specimen next to any other Hummingbirds featured in the Arizona collection and you will probably call it pretty quickly. Assuming you can see the difficulty if you don’t have that relative characteristic.
Okay, next up is a rather slender entry in the female Hummingbird category. You will see that its bill contains some orange coloring and compared to the Violet-Crowned, definitely a dingy underfeathering. This one can get a bit tricky, but there is one field marking that can help tremendously.
See that larger white line behind the eye that curves downward. Based on my research, this puts this particular female specimen in the Broad-Billed Hummingbird species. It also has a notched tail, but she needs to be willing to show that to you.
This is the point where this Hummer ID misogi has the greatest chance of failure. Part of that is due to not having a good set of pictures of the female Anna’s from the Arizona trip to refer to and the rest of the concern is this female is just plain hard to identify. I am cheating a bit here as I am not including the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird in this list because I didn’t feature that species in my Hummingbird series. Fortunately, their ranges do not overlap much (definitely not in Arizona, but they do get close in west) Texas). They are very similar in my opinion.
Anna’s females will usually have a small reddish spot on their throat (see darker spot above), a pale/whitish line over the eye and an all black bill. They are also pretty plump…sorry, did not mean to offend, “full figured” versus say the svelte Black-Chinned females. Word has it the Black-Chins spend their free time in Peloton spin classes and splurge for Sono Bello sculpting sessions. I will make a point to get more pictures of the Anna’s females next time I get an opportunity to see them in the field. Oh, note, Cornell continues to drive me crazy. You can compare a Ruby-Throated to an Anna’s, but you cannot compare an Anna’s to a Ruby-Throated on their website – this absolutely drives me bat-shit crazy.
Thought I would also give you my cheat sheet I created during my research in case it provides you some help in the field
Broad-Billed
Slender, Dingy Underparts, White Line Curves Down Behind Eye
Anna’s
Metallic Green Above, Grayish Below, Reddish Spotting on Throat, Black Bill, Pale Line Over Eye
Black-Chinned
Dull Metallic Green, Whitish Throat and Underparts, White Tips on Outer Tail Feathers
Rivoli’s
Large, Long Straight Bill, Green Above, Grayish Below, Small White Streak Behind Eye, Dark Bill
Violet Crowned
Males and Females Same, Straight Orange Black Tipped Bill, Immatures: Brown Head with Limited Coloring on Crown/Hindneck
Comparisons:
Anna’s have a shorter bill and plumper than Black-Chinned
Black-Chinned have a clearer throat than Anna’s
Black-Chinned are smaller with a darker bill compared to orange bill of Violet-Crowned
Rivoli’s larger than all these other specimens
Rivoli’s have dingy underparts compared to Violet-Crowned
I have to say it feels good to have made this attempt at the females Hummers. I wish I could give you more definitive comparisons or a tried and true breakdown to help you in the field, unfortunately, their similarities can outweigh their differences. Good luck in the field and as stated earlier, feedback is absolutely welcome.
Now I will leave you with a shot of our youngest – Linda is shooting a dog show this weekend and needed to get her settings dialed in. Ruger quickly volunteered – what a ham!!
Life Intrigued 