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Ruby-throated Hummingbird | Archilochus colubris
Robijnkeelkolibrie | Colibrí gorjirrubí
The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only hummingbird breeding in eastern North America. Most of the population winters in Mexico and Central America; a small number migrates through or to the Bahamas, Cuba and the Cayman Islands. It is thus the only hummingbird in the region that arrives as a migrant from the north.
Voice
The call is a soft, dry chik, sometimes rapidly repeated; chases bring high twittering. The male's wings make an audible hum.
Recording: Anne McCormack — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
7–9 cm, with a straight, medium-length black bill. Both sexes are glossy green above. The male has a ruby-red gorget that looks black without direct light, a black chin and lores, a white collar below the gorget, greenish-grey flanks and a forked dark tail. The female has a whitish throat, sometimes finely streaked, pale grey underparts with a buff wash on the flanks and a rounded tail with white tips to the outer feathers. Young males have a streaked throat with a few red feathers.
Confusion species
Female Bahama Woodstar Nesophlox evelynae is smaller and has a cinnamon belly and much cinnamon in the tail. Cuban Emerald Riccordia ricordii is larger and all green or grey below, with a long forked tail and a pink lower mandible. Bee Hummingbird Mellisuga helenae of Cuba is much smaller with a short tail, and the male has a rose-red head and throat.
Habitat
In winter in gardens, parks and yards with flowering shrubs, forest edges, pine forest, and dry forest and coastal scrub; it comes to feeders. It takes nectar and small insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
In the Bahamas a scarce but regular winter visitor and passage migrant, with most records from Grand Bahama and Abaco and a few from Andros, Bimini and the Berry Islands. In Cuba a rare passage migrant and winter visitor, mainly in the west (Pinar del Río, Havana, Matanzas) and in Ciego de Ávila. In the Cayman Islands (Grand Cayman) rare but recorded repeatedly. Isolated reports also from Jamaica, Hispaniola and the US Virgin Islands. Breeds in eastern North America and winters mainly from Mexico to Panama.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Grand Bahama at feeders and in gardens with flowering shrubs around Freeport, especially from December to April. Any hummingbird in the north of the region with a white throat and a plain grey belly deserves a second look.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common on the breeding grounds; only a small part of the population winters in the Caribbean.
Scientific name
Archilochus colubris | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Trochilus Colubris; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Archilochus was introduced in 1854 by Reichenbach. Archilochus honours the Greek poet Archilochus of Paros (7th century BC); Reichenbach named many hummingbird genera after classical figures. colubris is a Latinised form of colibri, the French and Spanish name for a hummingbird. The specimen the first description was based on came from South Carolina, United States.