Female Black-chinned Hummingbird 2

2020 07 02 Female Black-chinned Hummingbird in the backyard-2546

Female Black-chinned Hummingbird – I struggled with the identification of this bird. While my heart and gut told me it had to be a female Black-chinned Hummingbird, the markings were a little confusing. There is a bit of white line above the eye of this bird. The classic photos of Black-chinned Hummingbirds do not show this line. The descriptions of female Black-chinned Hummingbirds do not mention the line either. So, I moved on to other possibilities in our area. None of the common hummingbirds that frequent Central Texas have the white line either in photos or in the descriptions. I finally found a bird that most closely matched this bird regarding the white line above the eye. It was a female Anna’s Hummingbird. However, that bird would be very rare in this area and there are other disqualifying attributes as well. So, I finally called her a female Black-chinned Hummingbird and am sticking to that call unless Sheri Williams calls me out.

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