Hummingbird Tagging at Tom's Hummingbirds

One of the traps, the net falls down by remote control


The small tags for hummingbirds.


The weighing of the bird, its wrapped in fabric to keep it safe.

measuring the bill.

A feather from a Hummingbird.

Waiting to fly away, its so light you don't know its in your hand.

Up close of the tail feathers.

Male Black Chinned Hummingbird.

Male Black Chinned Hummingbird

Calliope Hummingbird

Female Roufus Hummingbird

Today was an informative and fun experience. The tagging these small birds was a well planned out process. First they would catch the birds in a cage after the bird flew in for some food. Next they would place the bird in a small holding bag. The person tagging would then, take the bird out and put in into a piece of fabric to keep the bird still and safe. They would weigh, measure the bill, measure the wings and tail feathers. Then using a straw they would blow on the chest area and head area to look for fat and molt to see if they were migrating, then tag them and let them go. After the process they would set the bird in your hand and it would sit there for a bit and then fly off. The person tagging held the bird up to my ear so I could hear the heartbeat which was super fast. I was also shown how they tell the sex of the younger birds by looking at a certain feather on the wing. They also looked at the bill for ridges to determine age. If you use a magnifier you could see the little feathers around the eye that looked like eye lashes. A few of the birds really made a lot of noise, and others were very quiet. The place we were at had 42 hummingbird feeders, the hummingbirds were all over the place. We saw Roufus, Calliope and Black Chinned Hummingbirds. It was an amazing day. The video below shows the process using the straw to blow on the bird and check for fat and molt.