Last Tuesday, 15 April, we banded two male Ruby-throated hummingbirds with unusual colored gorgets at our Hummer/Bird Study Group migration banding station at Fort Morgan, AL. Pictures of those two birds and another unusual one we banded there two years ago are athttp://www.pbase.com/fhound/gorgets. The first bird had normally colored red gorget feathers, but some of feathers were black and others were tipped black. The color was a part of the feathers rather than a foreign substance such as soot on the feathers. Otherwise, the bird was a normal adult male Ruby-throated. The second bird had purple gorget feathers similar to several Ruby-throated x Black-chinned hybrids I have banded in Texas, but the bird showed no other characteristics of a hybrid. The bird had the normal emerald green color of a Ruby-throated, and feather shape, color, and tail fork were spot on for Ruby-throated. The third bird from two springs ago had a lime green gorget. Otherwise, it was also a normal adult male Ruby-throated. The science of how iridescence works in hummingbird gorget feathers is way out of my league, but a few birds break the "normal" mode. This isn't confined to Ruby-throated hummers. I've caught a male Rufous with a lime green gorget and Black-chinneds with iridescent grey and full black gorgets. Aren't hummingbirds wonderful. I used to think I knew a bit about them but find the more I learn, the more my total ignorance is apparent.
