Hi all,

Word of a hummingbird still visiting a feeder in Union County came to me just recently, and Allen Chartier was able to make the trip down and band the bird this morning. It turns out to be an adult female Rufous Hummingbird, and she weighed in at a whopping 3.6 grams. The bird is healthy as a horse, and was back at the feeder within minutes of being released. I have a nice series of photos of the whole banding operation and the bird itself, and will post a story about the experience to my blog later today.

I was able to talk to the homeowner about allowing visitors, and she is OK with that (but hoping there won't be hundreds!). As there have been at least six other Rufous Hummingbirds in Ohio this fall, I didn't figure this bird would draw that kind of traffic. The homeowners live about 15 minutes north of Marysville, in Union County. If you would like to visit, please email me directly and I will share contact information.

Thanks to Allen Chartier for making the drive down from Michigan, and applying his expertise to this situation. The hummingbird's landlords were utterly delighted with the whole experience, as were the rest of us.

Jim

Jim McCormac
Columbus, Ohio
Like Nature? http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/
Like Birds? http://www.ohiobirds.org/



__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4415 (20090910) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com


______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]