CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The broad-tailed hummingbird flitted around blooming Alabama crimson honeysuckle Thursday afternoon right on schedule and alit at the hummingbird feeder below the kitchen window of Deanna and Doug Uphoff’s ranch house northwest of Champaign.
Ten minutes earlier I had pulled off, guessing this was the right place seeing Steve Zehner with his long camera and two other birders waiting under a maple holding most of its yellowing leaves. All eyes and Zehner’s Canon R5 were focused, waiting, for the first confirmed Illinois sighting of a broad-tailed hummingbird to reappear.
Mary Zehner whispered that it had been coming every 35 minutes. She handed me her binoculars when I explained I came from a fish meeting in Champaign. Alan Anderson, research committee chair for Chicago Bird Alliance, had messaged that I should see it on my way home.
Steve and Mary Zehner were among the birders who came to see and document Illinois’ first confirmed sighting of a broad-tailed hummingbird, which happened at Deanna and Doug Uphoff’s ranch house in Champaign.
Dale Bowman
The hummingbird fed a few minutes, then flitted off.
While I chatted with Doug — Deanna was working — and saw another birder arrive, it returned twice.
An embracing community assembled around this sighting, largely because of the Uphoffs.
Doug said they “probably had 20 to 30 people” to see it last Wednesday. On Thursday, he put out a sign-in book — people came from as far as Chicago, St. Louis and Indianapolis — and a bucket for donations to the Champaign County Audubon Society.
Deanna first saw it the afternoon of Nov. 7.
“She knew it was not the normal hummingbird,” Doug said. “She reached out to some other birders [for identification] ... She leaves her feeders up after [the common ruby-throated] hummingbirds leave in case any rufouses show up.”
The rufous is the northernmost breeding hummingbird, an uncommon sighting in Illinois.
Now add the broad-tailed. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, they are the “jewel of high mountain meadows,” summering as far north as the Colorado mountains, where nights regularly drop below freezing. Cornell Lab also notes, “To make it through a cold night, they slow their heart rate and drop their body temperature, entering a state of torpor. As soon as the sun comes up, displaying males show off their rose-magenta throats while performing spectacular dives.”
Deanna displayed an impressive sense of the moment, posting on social media, “So blessed to have this broad-tailed hummingbird in our yard. It was so fun seeing birders come view the bird although I had to work most of the day. My awesome husband hosted all day.”
When I asked Doug if he was a birder, he said, “My wife loves birds. I love my wife.”
A full view of Steve Zehner’s photograph of a broad-tailed hummingbird working an Alabama crimson honeysuckle in Champaign . Credit: Steve Zehner
Steve Zehner
Wild things
Here’s to the faithful reader who sent a photo Friday of the deer rut in the south suburbs. Alas, it’s too full-monty to run in the paper. That’s this week’s heads-up for drivers to beware.
Illinois hunting
Weather forecast sounds too nice for the first firearm deer season Friday through Sunday.
Stray cast
Chinook salmon live longer than Chicago baseball managers last.
