Costa's hummingbird in Bishop

Observers: Chris Howard
Email: choward@telis.org
Remote Name: 65.244.205.238
Date: 09/29/2005
Time: 07:07 PM -0400

Sighting

At lunch today, 29 Sept, there was a young male Costa's Hummingbird behind the Bishop City Park. I thought it was kinda late for Costa's and indeed the Heindel Graphs show the late as 5 Sept (save a winter record). Today's bird had an incomplete, splotchy purple gorget, lacking the pointy tips, and wide inner primaries (not an Archilochus). I heard it first making those dive-bomb whirring noises, so I looked for it flying. However, once I saw it perched, it continued 'singing' the whirring sounds. I had always thought the whirring sound was from the wind going through the feathers on the dive-bomb itself. Huh.