Rare Bird Alert!

On Friday we got to see a rare bird, a Costa's Hummingbird. This bird is a provincial rarity. Normally the northern tip of it's range is Arizona, but we saw it in southern BC.

Here is a video that shows the mating displays of a Costa's Hummingbird, which starts at the 34 second mark. BBC, David Attenborough's Life in Colour, Beautiful Hummingbird.

Here are pictures of the Costa's Hummingbird that we saw. I chose the first picture, because I like how it shows the iridescence in flight.

The feathers sticking out behind the head are gorgets (pronounced gor-jit).

In this photo it more clearly shows the gorgets. The gorgets only look bright purple when the light hits them the right way.

We are 2064 km from Tofino!