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two hummingbirds, Colorado — a colour study

VIRIDIAN

the study

I watched these birds for days. I came home with a few hundred photographs and kept two.

It started as a colour study. The green on her back and the red on his throat aren’t pigment — there is no red in that feather. It is structure, and it changes depending on where you happen to be standing when he turns. That is the thing I was trying to photograph, and it is why the palettes below are pulled out of the photographs rather than picked by me.

The flight numbers further down are not mine. They are cited.

specimen — ≈50 beats/sec ·

study 01 — in flight

the female
A hummingbird in flight against a soft blue-grey sky, photographed with a shallow depth of field
the hummingbird field studies — colorado
FLYGHT
structural color · observed
Observed
speciesselasphorus platycercus statein flight fieldfront range
colours pulled straight out of this photograph
glacier
brass
olive
walnut
ink

flight dynamics — the turn

comparative · calliope, a cousin
SIX WINGBEATS 82°
113MS
to turn 82° — start, turn, stop
turn rate2.01 Hz
wingbeats usedsix
inner wing drag+16% over outer
leading-edge vortex+59% stronger, inner
lift, downstroke65% of total
body mass2.6 g
reynolds no.3,640
I did not measure any of this. It is from Menzer, Ren, Guo, Tobalske & Dong, Biomimetics 7(3):115, 2022 — a simulation of a calliope hummingbird turning in place. A different species to her, a close cousin. I have put it here because it is the nearest thing anyone has actually measured.

study 02 — perched

the male
A male hummingbird with an iridescent rose-red throat perched on the tip of a spruce branch against a pale blue-white sky
the hummingbird field studies — colorado
Observed
GORGET
rose-red · worn by the male only
sexmale
signalflashed at rivals
hersnone — see study 01
speciesselasphorus platycercus stateperched fieldfoothills
colours pulled straight out of this photograph
glacier pale
gorget
spruce
buckskin
timber
the dive — what the gorget is for his species · his state
GROUND ~30 M SHE WATCHES NADIR
300MS
speed, sound & color — one blink
dive speed23.25 m/s
climb before dive~30 m
gorget visible for123 ms only
visible between−80° and +60°
her view of itred → black
doppler, approaching+6.5%
doppler, departing−4%
the 300 ms window
Hogan & Stoddard, Nature Communications 9:5260, 2018 — 48 dives by wild broad-tailed hummingbirds, recorded at Gothic, Colorado. Same species as him, same state. None of it is my work.

I have called her a broad-tailed on the best information I have. If that is wrong, tell me and I will fix it. He never introduced himself either — he just flashed the gorget, which I am choosing to take as a signature.