Acrobat on a High Wire

Happy National Hummingbird Day! It falls on the first Saturday of September every year, and this year I have the perfect little bird to celebrate it with.

For a few mornings in a row, a Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) had been visiting the feeder on our deck here in Round Rock. I would sit there with the camera, and it would come and go before I could do much about it. Then, one morning, it took a break on the high wire above the feeder, and I finally got my images. This one, judging by the whitish throat and the white tips on the outer tail feathers, is a female or a young bird. The adult males wear a black chin with a thin band of purple below it that only shows when the light hits it just right.

While it sat there, I noticed something odd. A few feathers on the upper part of its left wing looked ruffled, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until I downloaded the images to the computer that I understood what I had been watching. If you look carefully, the hummingbird is standing on one leg. The other leg is raised over the wing, and the tiny foot is scratching its neck, much like a dog scratching behind its ear. I had been witnessing a hummingbird preening, a first for me, and the “ruffled feathers” were just the wing being nudged out of the way.

That scratch is not idle fidgeting. A bird’s bill can reach almost every feather on its body except those on its own head and neck, so the foot takes over as a comb for that area. Scratching helps spread the oil from the preen gland near the tail onto feathers the bill cannot reach, works loose old feathers and the sheaths of new ones during molt, and helps keep feather lice and mites in check. Ornithologists even sort birds by how they do it: some “direct” scratchers lift the leg straight up in front of the wing, while “over-the-wing” scratchers, like this hummingbird, drape the wing down and reach the leg over it. Late summer is a busy time for feather care, too. A Black-chinned Hummingbird weighs only 0.1–0.2 ounces (2.3–4.9 grams), and many of them will soon be heading south toward wintering grounds along the Gulf Coast and beyond, so every feather needs to be in flying order.

One advantage of meditating on the deck is that I am always surrounded by wildlife. When I finish, I start having fun with the camera, and the birds have usually forgotten I am there. Moments like this one, a bird small enough to sit in a teaspoon, quietly taking care of itself on a wire, are priceless to me. I would have missed it entirely if I hadn’t looked at the photos a second time.

That is the story behind the shots. For more like this, enjoy these related stories: Bird of the Week, Black-Chinned Hummingbird, Round Rock, Teravista, Texas, and Wildlife. Until the next shoot, keep chasing the light and the wonders it reveals.

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• Posted for I.J. Khanewala’s Birds of the Week Invitation CLXXXIV.

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Sources:

• Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds — Black-chinned Hummingbird Identification — https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-chinned_Hummingbird/id
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds — Black-chinned Hummingbird Overview — https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-chinned_Hummingbird/overview
• Stanford Birds (Ehrlich, Dobkin & Wheye), Essays — Head Scratching — https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Head_Scratching.html
• Journey North — Hummingbird: Preening and Sunning — https://journeynorth.org/humm/fall2014/c091914_preen.html
• Hummingbird101 — Why do hummingbirds scratch themselves? — https://www.hummingbird101.com/why-do-hummingbirds-scratch-themselves/
• National Day Calendar — National Hummingbird Day, first Saturday in September — https://nationaldaycalendar.com/celebrations/national-hummingbird-day-first-saturday-in-september