General

Broad-tailed Hummingbird: Medium-sized hummingbird with green upperparts and flanks, iridescent red throat, and gray underparts. Dark green tail may show some rufous. Female is larger with pale orange-brown underparts and lightly speckled throat. Dark green and rufous tail has white-tipped outer tail feathers.

Range and Habitat

Broad-tailed Hummingbird: Breeds in the mountains from eastern California and northern Wyoming through the Great Basin and Rocky Mountain states to southern Arizona and western Texas. Spends winters in Mexico. Preferred habitats include mountain meadows, pinyon-juniper woodlands, dry ponderosa pines, fir or mixed forests, and canyon vegetation.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"chip", "chick", "chitter chitter chitter"

Interesting Facts

 The Broad-tailed Hummingbird enters torpor, a slowed metabolic state, on cold nights. It maintains a body temperature of about 54° when ambient temperatures fall below 44° F. 

 One female holds the North American age record for hummingbirds, at twelve years old.

 Accounts of this species mention that it nests in the same tree or bush year after year, a phenomenon known as philopatry-faithfulness to the previous home area. It will return to the same branch and even build a new nest atop the old one.

 A group of hummingbirds has many collective nouns, including a “bouquet", "glittering", "hover", "shimmer", and "tune” of hummingbirds.

Author

Gary Owen Dick