Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Selasphorus platycercus · Hummingbirds
Banding codeBTLH
Keys to identifying it
1Size & shape
About 3.5 in long.
2Color pattern
- Male: rose-magenta throat
- Green back, pale belly with buffy sides
- Female: rufous at the base of the tail
3Habitat & season
Mountain meadows, aspen and conifer forests
In northern Utah: summer.
Seen most often in July and August.
Share of the region’s research-grade iNaturalist bird observations each month, scaled to this bird’s peak. Highlighted bars are its peak months.
4Voice
The male's wings make a loud, metallic trill in flight.
“a cricket-like wing trill”
iNat 242750112 by Jonathan Layman · Larimer County, CO, USA · CC BY
Know it
- Males' wingtips make a loud metallic trill — you often hear them before you see them.
- Survives freezing mountain nights by entering torpor, slowing its heartbeat and cooling down.
- Males perform high, U-shaped dive displays.
- The common hummingbird of Utah's mountains in summer.
Often confused with
Black-chinned Hummingbird- Rufous Hummingbird
- Calliope Hummingbird
From iNaturalist identification data for northern Utah.
From Wikipedia
The broad-tailed hummingbird is a medium-sized hummingbird species found in highland regions from western United States and Western Canada to Mexico and Guatemala.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0