Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
Remsen,
J.V.
1978
Blue-throated Hummingbird
Lampornis clemenciae
Jan. 19 Three Rivers, Tulare Co. Calif.: 1♀ at a feeder on Heidi Rd
where it has been present since Christmas. We saw the
bird as soon as we arrived and saw it 20+ times in the
hour we were there.
Description: upper-parts shining
green, becoming bronzy on lower back and rump; wings
blackish; face dark grayish with very well-defined white
superciliary arching downwards posterior to the eye and
another white streak below the eye from near the bill to
below the eye - this lower streak was not as broad and
in between the two stripes, the face was a dusky, dark grayish
conspicuously; the underparts seemed a very uniform
grey; vent area white, surrounded by greenish grey; upperside
of tail shining dark blue-green, hue changing according to
angle of light; the outer tail feathers were conspicuously tipped
white; when perched, all of the tail feathers visible from the
upperside were narrowly tipped white; the underside
face pattern:
dark grayish mask
bordered by white
stripes above and
below
iridescent olive-green
underparts
uniform grey
bronze tinge on lower back
and rump
tail dull but shining
dark blue-green
of the tail was mostly white with a dark base →.
The bill was blackish. The overall size was much,
much larger than any hummer normally occurring in California;