Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds (Se­las­pho­rus rufus) are mi­gra­tory birds that in­habit the Nearc­tic re­gion. Mi­gra­tory dis­tances av­er­age 2,700 km, but can be as long as 4,000 km. Ru­fous hum­ming­birds travel in a loop pat­tern when mi­grat­ing, rather than a lin­ear path­way.

The breed­ing sea­son lasts from April to July. The hum­ming­birds’ range in­cludes Wash­ing­ton state in the United States north­ward to British Co­lum­bia, Canada. This range is roughly 200 km along the Pa­cific north­west­ern coast of North Amer­ica.

Dur­ing win­ter mi­gra­tion (July-early Sep­tem­ber), the hum­ming­birds travel south­ward through the west­ern US to reach south­ern Cal­i­for­nia and nearly all Mex­ico (ex­cept the south­ern penin­sula). These birds re­main there until late Feb­ru­ary or early March. By March, they travel north­ward along the coast of Cal­i­for­nia to reach Wash­ing­ton again by the end of April. (Healy and Calder, 2006; Supp, et al., 2015)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

In the breed­ing sea­son, ru­fous hum­ming­birds in­habit ter­res­trial habi­tats such as mead­ows, parks, or­chards, conif­er­ous forests, chap­ar­ral and gar­dens. Typ­i­cal areas for these hum­ming­birds are plen­ti­ful with an abun­dance of green plants. The urban areas of Wash­ing­ton state and British Co­lum­bia offer in­clude suit­able habi­tats at high el­e­va­tions and sea­son­ally cool en­vi­ron­ments.

Dur­ing the win­ter, ru­fous hum­ming­birds mi­grate to warmer lo­cales in Mex­ico’s and south­ern Cal­i­for­nia’s moun­tain­ous and wood­land re­gions.

Through­out their range, ru­fous hum­ming­birds live at el­e­va­tions of 1830m to 3000m.

In their mi­gra­tory jour­ney, these hum­ming­birds spend most of their time in the south­west of the US. Be­cause these areas are more desert-like, they are dryer and there­fore do not pro­vide ad­e­quate food sup­ply. (Calder, 1984; Healy and Calder, 2006; Tello-Ramos, et al., 2015)

• Habitat Regions
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• chaparral
• forest
• mountains

• Other Habitat Features
• urban
• suburban
• agricultural

• Range elevation

  1830 to 3000 m

  6003.94 to 9842.52 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds weigh 2.6-5.7 g (av­er­age 3.4 g). On av­er­age, they are 9.5 cm long with a wingspan of 11.4 cm. There are in­suf­fi­cient data on birth size of these hum­ming­birds. They can have spots of color, but over­all are dull in ap­pear­ance. Males ap­pear to be more col­or­ful than fe­males.

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds have black bills that be­come smoother in adults.

Young birds start with darker skin with­out feath­ers, but have grey strip­ing down ei­ther side of the back. As they grow from hatch­lings to nearly a month old, the feath­ers of the throat re­gion begin to get green with bronze spot­ting. The head be­gins to ap­pear more red or burnt or­ange in color. The fe­males’ throat ap­pear to have more bronze spot­ting and the males’ throat ap­pear or­ange. The fe­males’ throat ap­pear wider than those of males.

In adults, the top of the head down to the nape of the neck is metal­lic bronze-green. This ap­pears duller in fe­males than males. The bronze-green feather color is a theme for most of the body in adults. The face and throat ap­pear more bright red in males and bronze-green in fe­males. Fe­males’ bod­ies have more hints of pur­ple than males.

Subadult hum­ming­birds be­come more rusty red in color, es­pe­cially near the pos­te­rior end of the bird. Feath­ers be­come larger in num­ber on the en­tirety of the bird. Males' tails show metal­lic spot­ting with hints of bronze and green.

Basal meta­bolic rate has been re­ported as 0.0685 W, or 0.018034 W/g. (AnAge, 2014; Healy and Calder, 2006)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes colored or patterned differently
• male more colorful

• Range mass

  2.6 to 5.7 g

  0.09 to 0.20 oz

• Average mass

  3.4 g

  0.12 oz

• Average length

  9.5 cm

  3.74 in

• Average wingspan

  11.4 cm

  4.49 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  0.0685 W cm3.O2/g/hr

• Average basal metabolic rate

  0.06853 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds have a breed­ing sea­son from April to July. Males dive in a “J” mo­tion to at­tract fe­males. After the ini­tial at­trac­tion, mat­ing en­sues on the ground. These ac­tions con­tinue through­out the breed­ing sea­son. These hum­ming­birds are con­sid­ered polyg­y­nous. (Calder, 1973; Healy and Calder, 2006; Hurly, et al., 2001; Tamm, et al., 1989)

• Mating System
• polygynous

These birds have one clutch per year. Eggs are laid be­gin­ning in April with the ma­jor­ity from mid-May until the mid-July. Eggs are laid in nests that are close to the ground and well hid­den in plants and lower branches of trees. These nests, made by fe­males, are made of soft plants and sup­ported by bark, moss and spi­der webs. In gen­eral, the av­er­age clutch size is 2 eggs yearly with an in­cu­ba­tion pe­riod of 15-17 days. Young hum­ming­birds fledge when they are around 15 days old. If the fledg­ing is suc­cess­ful, the hum­ming­birds will not re­turn to the nest and live in­de­pen­dently. There are no data on age of sex­ual ma­tu­rity for ru­fous hum­ming­birds. (Calder, 1973; Cam­field, 2006; Healy and Calder, 2006; Hurly, et al., 2001)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Rufous hummingbirds breed yearly.

• Breeding season

  The breeding season for rufous hummingbirds is from April to July.

• Average eggs per season

  2

• Average eggs per season

  2

  AnAge

• Range time to hatching

  15 to 17 days

• Average fledging age

  15 days

• Average time to independence

  15 days

In­cu­ba­tion is per­formed by fe­males only. Dur­ing warm weather the fe­male can leave the nest when nec­es­sary for as long as an hour. Fe­males are re­spon­si­ble for their young for as long as they are in the nest. Both par­ents are re­spon­si­ble for feed­ing their off­spring. It’s likely that parental in­volve­ment ceases when the birds reach the fledg­ling stage at 15 days old. (Calder, 1973; Healy and Calder, 2006)

• Parental Investment
• female parental care
• pre-hatching/birth
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds, have an av­er­age lifes­pan of 6 years in the wild. Bird band­ing data show the longest liv­ing ru­fous hum­ming­bird to be 8 years and 11 months old. Lifes­pan can be es­ti­mated based on mass of the bird. Ac­cord­ing to Miller and Gass (1985), 3 g hum­ming­birds would have an av­er­age life ex­pectancy of 5.5-5.8 years whereas a 4 g hum­ming­bird would have one of 5.8-6.1 years. There is not suf­fi­cient data for lifes­pan of ru­fous hum­ming­birds in cap­tiv­ity. (Healy and Calder, 2006; Miller and Gass, 1985)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  8.9 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  6 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  6 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  107 months

  Bird Banding Laboratory

Be­hav­ior

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds are known for their quick, fig­ure-eight move­ment of their wings. This al­lows them to hover as they for­age for food.

These hum­ming­birds are not a so­cial species. Males are highly ter­ri­to­r­ial, not al­low­ing fe­males to share feed­ing grounds dur­ing breed­ing sea­sons. Fe­males feed lower to the ground whereas males hover higher. To keep up with high en­ergy de­mands, the hum­ming­birds must feed con­stantly. To con­serve en­ergy, ru­fous hum­ming­birds can enter a tor­por state. This state is achieved at night­time as well as dur­ing hot days. The big­ger, more en­ergy rich their meals are, the longer tor­por pe­riod they can en­dure. (Healy and Calder, 2006; Tello-Ramos, et al., 2015)

• Key Behaviors
• motile
• migratory
• daily torpor
• territorial

Home Range

There is no in­for­ma­tion on a spe­cific home range for ru­fous hum­ming­birds. ("Cal­i­for­nia Wildlife Habi­tat Re­la­tion­ships Sys­tem", 1988; Healy and Calder, 2006)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds are not very so­cial, and the ma­jor­ity of sounds they pro­duce are as warn­ing sig­nals. They let out a chip­ping noise to alert oth­ers of dan­ger. In breed­ing, males vi­su­ally at­tract fe­males by a div­ing mo­tion, and do not rely on acoustic mes­sages.

They view the world in color using the UV spec­trum. This is how they make re­ward as­so­ci­a­tions with flow­ers. When mi­grat­ing and for­ag­ing, mem­ory and vi­sual cues are im­por­tant. Spe­cific col­ors, red and yel­low, and lo­ca­tions of flow­ers allow these hum­ming­birds to find re­li­able fuel. (Healy and Calder, 2006)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• ultraviolet
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds are pri­mar­ily nec­tari­vores but also eat small in­sects. Be­cause they have such a high me­tab­o­lism, they must eat often, eat­ing about half their body weight each day. When they know they will be using a great amount of en­ergy (i.e. mi­grat­ing), they will in­crease their food in­take to ac­com­mo­date those ac­tiv­i­ties. When for­ag­ing for nec­tar, they re­turn where they have had suc­cesses be­fore and use color cues for which flow­ers may sup­ply their next meal. (Cam­field, 2006; Healy and Calder, 2006; Lotz, et al., 2003)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • nectarivore

• Animal Foods
• insects

• Plant Foods
• nectar
• flowers

Pre­da­tion

Preda­tors prey on hum­ming­birds while hum­ming­birds are hov­er­ing over plants to feed. They are in a more vul­ner­a­ble and un­aware state dur­ing this pe­riod. Pre­da­tion does not play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the mor­tal­ity rate of adult hum­ming­birds.

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds, typ­i­cally males, are known to chase off preda­tors or in­trud­ers to pro­tect their ter­ri­tory. Hum­ming­birds will also make alert sounds to warn oth­ers of im­pos­ing threats. (Cam­field, 2006; Carig­nan, 1988; Healy and Calder, 2006; Wells, 2007)

• Known Predators

  • No known predators

Ecosys­tem Roles

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds are pol­li­na­tors, which con­tributes to plant re­pro­duc­tion. Haemo­pro­teus archilochus is a pro­to­zoan that uses many ver­te­brates as hosts, in­clud­ing ru­fous hum­ming­birds. This pro­to­zoan at­tacks and de­stroys ery­thro­cytes. Or­nithoica vic­ina and Mi­crolynchia pusilla are species of Hip­po­boscid flies that are par­a­sitic to many birds, in­clud­ing ru­fous hum­ming­birds. These flies are vec­tors to many dis­eases that are harm­ful to birds and mam­mals alike, in­clud­ing malaria. Try­panosoma avium is a par­a­sitic pro­ta­zoan that feeds on the blood and blood mar­row of many bird species, in­clud­ing ru­fous hum­ming­birds. This par­a­site often en­ters the blood­stream of the hum­ming­bird via in­fected hip­po­boscid flies. (Amaya-Mar­quez, 2009; Healy and Calder, 2006; Mc­Clure, 1984; Sta­bler, et al., 1966; Valk­i­u­nas, 2005)

• Ecosystem Impact
• pollinates

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Ru­fous hum­ming­birds act as pol­li­na­tors. Pol­li­na­tion is a vital re­quire­ment for the growth of many plants and crops. Hu­mans in­di­rectly ben­e­fit from hum­ming­birds’ eco­nomic role when they con­sume foods that have been pol­li­nated. (Alar­con, et al., 2008; Amaya-Mar­quez, 2009; Healy and Calder, 2006)

• Positive Impacts
• pollinates crops

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse eco­nomic ef­fects of Se­las­pho­rus rufus on hu­mans. (Alar­con, et al., 2008; Amaya-Mar­quez, 2009; Healy and Calder, 2006)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Ac­cord­ing to the IUCN Red list, ru­fous hum­ming­birds are listed as a species of “Least Con­cern.” They are pro­tected under the US Mi­gra­tory Bird Act, which pro­hibits the traf­fick­ing and sale of these birds. There is no species sta­tus for the US Fed­eral list or CITES due to large ge­o­graph­i­cal ranges and pop­u­la­tion sizes. Feed­ers cre­ated by hu­mans (Homo sapi­ens) aid hum­ming­birds in win­ter months when food is less read­ily avail­able for them. In re­cent years, the pop­u­la­tions are de­clin­ing, pos­si­bly due to de­for­esta­tion. How­ever, the rate of de­cline does not put the species at risk. Ru­fous hum­ming­birds are being mon­i­tored but no con­ser­va­tion ac­tion plan is cur­rently en­acted. (BirdLife In­ter­na­tional, 2015; Wells, 2007)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Migratory Bird Act

  Protected

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Car­rie An­der­son (au­thor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Cari Mc­gre­gor (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Zeb Pike (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Karen Pow­ers (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, April Tin­gle (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Jacob Vaught (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Genevieve Bar­nett (ed­i­tor), Col­orado State Uni­ver­sity.

Ref­er­ences

Cal­i­for­nia De­part­ment of Fish and Wildlife. Cal­i­for­nia Wildlife Habi­tat Re­la­tion­ships Sys­tem. B291. Sacra­mento, CA: Cal­i­for­nia De­part. of Fish and Game. 1988.

Alar­con, R., N. Waser, J. Oller­ton. 2008. Year-to-year vari­a­tion in the topol­ogy of a plant-pol­li­na­tor in­ter­ac­tion net­work. Oikos, 117/12: 1796-1807.

Amaya-Mar­quez, M. 2009. Flo­ral con­stancy in bees: A re­vi­sion of the­o­ries and a com­par­i­son with other pol­li­na­tors. Re­vusta Colom­bri­ana de En­to­molo­gia, 35/2: 206-216.

AnAge, 2014. "AnAge - Me­tab­o­lism" (On-line). AnAge entry for Se­las­pho­rus rufus. Ac­cessed April 19, 2016 at http://​genomics.​senescence.​info/​species/​entry.​php?​species=Selasphorus_​rufus.

BirdLife In­ter­na­tional, 2015. "Se­las­pho­rus rufus" (On-line). The IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species 2015: e.T22688296A85086092. Ac­cessed Jan­u­ary 27, 2016 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​details/​summary/​22688296/​0.

Calder, W. 1984. Size, Func­tion and Life His­tory. New York: Courier Cor­per­a­tion.

Calder, W. 1973. The tim­ing of ma­ter­nal be­hav­ior of the broad-tailed hum­ming­bird pre­ced­ing nest fail­ure. The Wil­son Bul­letin, 85/3: 283-290.

Cam­field, A. 2006. Re­source value af­fects ter­ri­to­r­ial de­fense by broad-tailed and ru­fous hum­ming­birds. Jour­nal of Field Or­nithol­ogy, 77/2: 120-125.

Carig­nan, J. 1988. Pre­da­tion on Ru­fous hum­ming­bird by Pray­ing Man­tid. The Texas Jour­nal of Sci­ence, 40/1: 157-158.

Healy, S., W. Calder. 2006. "Ru­fous Hum­ming­bird (Se­las­pho­rus rufus)" (On-line). The Birds of North Amer­ica (A. Poole. Ed.). Ac­cessed Jan­u­ary 24, 2016 at http://​bna.​birds.​cornell.​edu/​bna/​species/​053.

Hurly, T., R. Scott, S. Healy. 2001. The func­tion of dis­plays of male Ru­fous hum­ming­birds. The Con­dor, 103/3: 647-651.

Lasiewski, R. 1964. Body tem­per­a­tures, heart and breath­ing rate, and evap­o­ra­tive water loss in hum­ming­birds. Phys­i­o­log­i­cal Zo­ol­ogy, 37/2: 212-223.

Lotz, C., C. Mar­tinez del Rio, S. Nicol­son. 2003. Hum­ming­birds pay a high cost for a warm drink. Jour­nal of Com­par­a­tive Phys­i­ol­ogy, 173/6: 455-462.

Mc­Clure, H. 1984. The oc­cur­rence of Hip­po­boscid flies on some species of birds in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Jour­nal of Field Or­nithol­ogy, 55/2: 230-240.

Miller, R., C. Gass. 1985. Sur­vivor­ship in hum­ming­birds: Is pre­da­tion im­por­tant?. The Auk, 102/1: 175-178.

Nuri Flo­res-Abreu, I., T. Hurly, S. Healy. 2013. Three-di­men­sional spa­tial learn­ing in hum­ming­birds. An­i­mal Be­hav­iour, 85/3: 579-584.

Sta­bler, R., P. Holt, N. Kitzmiller. 1966. Try­panosoma avium in the blood and bone mar­row from 677 Col­orado birds. The Jour­nal of Par­a­sitol­ogy, 52/6: 1141-1144.

Supp, S., F. La Sorte, T. Cormier, M. Lim, D. Pow­ers, S. Wething­ton, S. Goetz, C. Gra­ham. 2015. Cit­i­zen-sci­ence data pro­vides new in­sight into an­nual and sea­sonal vari­a­tion in mi­gra­tion pat­terns. Ecos­phere, 6/1: 15.

Tamm, S., D. Arm­strong, Z. Tooze. 1989. Dis­play be­hav­ior of male cal­liope hum­ming­birds dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. The Con­dor, 91/2: 272-279.

Tello-Ramos, M., T. Hurly, C. Hig­gott, S. Healy. 2015. Time-place learn­ing in wild, free-liv­ing hum­ming­birds. An­i­mal Be­hav­iour, 104/2015: 123-129.

Valk­i­u­nas, G. 2005. Avian Malaria Par­a­sites and other Haemo­sporidia. Boca Raton: CRC press.

Wells, J. 2007. Birder's Con­ser­va­tion Hand­book: 100 North Amer­i­can Birds at Risk. Prince­ton: Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Press.