Allen's Hummingbirds in Harlingen, 1/31/18

A week ago Kelly Bryan was in the RGV banding hummingbirds at Stephanie Bilodeau and Justin LeClaire's place just outside of Harlingen.  Among the surprisingly large number of winter hummers was an Allen's Hummingbird.  This would be a new species for me in Cameron County so I made arrangements to spend some time in their yard watching the feeders.  It took a few hours but there was so much action that time passed quickly.  Here he is, #402 for me in Cameron County.

A second male Selasphours went unbanded by Kelly but I guessed it was also an Allen's Hummingbird.  Later Justin and Stephanie got good views of the spread tail showing the lanceolate R2 tail feather.

This female Selaphorus would normally be assumed to be a Rufous Hummingbird but apparently that assumption doesn't hold anymore.  I used to identify all the Selasphorus as Rufous but Allen's Hummingbird is turning out to not be that rare.  I don't know if anything can be gleaned from the spread tail shot.

Meanwhile there were also a couple of male Black-chinned Hummingbirds.

And a young male Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Not sure what this female Archilochus is.

Kelly banded four Buff-bellied Hummingbirds.

Pretty good hummingbird diversity for the Valley in January.