Stray Hummingbird Stays Till Spring

Tuesday, March 20 6:12 pm

This hummingbird is the first in recent memory to overwinter in New York. © David Ottavio

When a stray Rufous Hummingbird from the West came to the Museum in early December, no one thought she’d stay through snow, wind, and below-freezing nights—let alone until spring.

Still in the bushes on the equinox, this “vagrant,” the official term for migrators outside their range, is the first stray hummingbird in recent memory to overwinter in New York. En route to her wintering grounds in Mexico, she likely miscalculated the angle of her flight path south, landing her in the Museum’s shrubs outside the 81st Street entrance.

Rufous Hummingbirds can survive moderately cold weather and spend their summers in Alaska and the Rocky Mountains. On top of this species’ hardy nature, New York’s mild winter, a blooming Mahonia japonica plant in the yard with ample nectar, and a little help from Museum exhibition preparator Jason Brougham, who set up a feeder filled with sugar water, carried this Rufous through the winter days. To weather cold nights, hummingbirds find shelter and enter a miniature hibernation known as torpor, where their body temperature and metabolism drop dramatically. Read more »

Stray Western Hummingbird Visits the Museum’s Flowers

Friday, December 16 3:42 pm

A Western hummingbird is making a rare appearance at the Museum. Above, the bird feeds on Museum flowers outside the 81st Street entrance. © David Speiser. Click to enlarge.

Earlier this week, a crowd gathered around the shrubbery at the Museum’s 81st Street entrance.

They were looking for a Western hummingbird that found its way to the Museum grounds. Noah Burg of the Museum’s Education Department first spotted the stray on Wednesday, though it may have been there for several days.

Ornithologists at the Museum have not confirmed the species, but the consensus is leaning toward the Rufous Hummingbird, whose breeding range extends through the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to Northern California. Other suggestions included Allen’s Hummingbird and the Broad-tailed Hummingbird. All three species are part of the genus Selasphorus and live far from New York City, in the western part of the continent.

While it’s not unheard of for a bird from afar to end up in the East, it is a rare occurrence to see a Rufous Hummingbird in this area. A small navigational error can result in a big mistake for a long-distance migrating bird. “If you’re going from Alaska down to Mexico,” explains Paul Sweet, who oversees the Department of Ornithology collections, “And you get your angle a little wrong, you can end up on the East Coast rather than going south. This pattern of ‘vagrancy’ is a rare but regular phenomenon in many species of migratory birds at this time of the year.”

No one knows how long the visitor will stay, but birders hoping for a rare glimpse should look at the foliage that flanks the ground-level entrance to the Rose Center for Earth and Space on 81st street, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.

To learn more about the Museum’s winter bird walks in Central Park, click here.

This stray hummingbird, most likely a Rufous Hummingbird, appeared outside the Museum this week. © Jacob Drucker. Click to enlarge.

The Western visitor perches in the Museum's shrubbery. © Jacob Drucker. Click to enlarge.