Fate of the Calliope Hummingbird as related by Jim McCormac, Secretary of the Ohio Bird Records Committee

Last Wednesday, October 30, a resident of Chillicothe, Ohio, reported a hummingbird visiting her flowerbeds and hummingbird feeder, and thinking it might be something unusual, alerted a few local birders. They visited the site, found the bird, and took some pictures and made observations, concluding it was not a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and thought that it might be a Rufous Hummingbird. The bird clearly was NOT an adult male, and was either a hatch-year male or female, or adult female. These subadult/female hummingbirds - particularly in the genus Selasphorus, such as Rufous is in - are very tricky to ID, and way out-of-range birds have to be looked at quite critically and often catching them for measurement purposes seems to be the only way to satisfactorily and positively identify them. Anyway, one of the birders e-mailed the images to myself and a bander with considerable hummingbird expertise for an opinion. Even though the pictures didn't show all of the characters necessary for identification - often these features can't easily be captured on film with free-flying birds - I felt that there were features that suggested Calliope Hummingbird, and that it certainly wasn't a Ruby-throated. The bander felt the same way, and at the request of one of the local birders, agreed to try and capture it to determine the identification. This morning, the bird was caught, and measurements were taken that conclusively identified it as a Calliope Hummingbird, the state's first record. Unfortunately, during the process of working with the bird, it expired. It's important to note that it's death wasn't brought about by improper handling or any lack of care on the part of the bander - examination of the specimen revealed very low body fat, and the bird probably had other health-related issues as well, which might not be surprising given how far out-of-range it was. The bander has extensive experience working with hummers, and was extremely careful in his handling of it, and it was only in captivity for a few minutes. It also should be noted that mortality during banding operations is very, very low. In fact, the Logan County hummingbird just posted by Donna Daniel was caught and banded about a month ago, and is still present and visiting her feeder.

While this bird's death is very unfortunate, I don't think blame should be placed on anyone for what happened. Those involved felt that this was the best way to quickly and absolutely determine the identification, and given that capture of hummers has been done many times with no problems, certainly didn't anticipate that anything would go wrong. It's quite likely that this bird's probable poor health would have made survival of the upcoming frigid nights unlikely. Furthermore, nobody wanted to put out word to the birding community until there was a positive identification, as there was still a big question as to what the bird was. Also, no one knew how the homeowner might feel about having large numbers of people visit her house, if indeed the bird turned out to be something really rare. So, today during the course of trying to work these things out, the situation took this sad twist. By capturing the bird, it was determined that it was a hatch-year male Calliope Hummingbird - critical measurements eliminate everything else - and that it's body fat was very low, a 1 on a scale of 0 to 3. The specimen will be deposited with the bird collections at the Ohio State University. There are scattered records from the east of Calliope - New York, New Jersey, Illinois, the Carolinas...

I'm really sorry to have to report such an unfortunate event, but thought that it was important that everyone know the facts behind this story right away.

Page established 6 November 2002; copyright 2002 Victor W. Fazio III