The hummingbird competes with the stillness of the air.

Quotation by Chogyam Trungpa

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris), is a small hummingbird. It is the only species of hummingbird that regularly nests east of the Mississippi River in North America.

The breeding habitat is throughout most of eastern North America and the Canadian prairies, in deciduous and pine forests and forest edges, orchards, and gardens.

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is migratory, spending most of the winter in southern Mexico, Central America to South America, and the West Indies.

Identification Tips:
• Length: 3 inches
• Long, straight, thin bill
• Small hummingbird
• Bright green back and crown
• White underparts with greenish flanks

Adult male:
• Iridescent scarlet gorget
• Black face and chin
• Entirely dark forked tail

Female/Immature:
• White chin and throat with variable amounts of thin dark streaking
• Dark, shallowly-forked tail with white tips on outer tail feathers

Similar species:

No other hummingbirds occur regularly over much of its range, but there is some overlap in the southeast and Texas. The Broad-tailed Hummingbird is similar to the male Ruby-throated, but has a rosy-red throat rather than a scarlet or ruby throat patch. Male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds can also be identified by their black face and chin, and their distinctive call notes, and the lack of a wing whistle produced by their wings in flight.

It breeds throughout the eastern United States, and in southern Canada in eastern and mixed deciduous forest. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are solitary.

Nectar from flowers and flowering trees is its main food, but its diet also occasionally includes insects and tree sap taken from woodpecker drilling. It shows a slight preference for red, tubular flowers as a nectar source. The birds feed from flowers using a long extendendable tongue, or catch insects on the wing.