Allen's Hummingbird
Selasphorus sasin · Hummingbirds
Allen's Hummingbird
San Diego, 6 March 2026
A male Allen's Hummingbird in a San Diego garden in March, on the coast where the species breeds - a narrow strip of California from Oregon to here, and nowhere else on earth. A resident male in early March is already on territory.
The rufous flanks and tail put this male in the genus Selasphorus, Allen's or Rufous, and the green back is the mark usually used to call it Allen's, since Rufous more often shows rufous across the whole back. It isn't a clean separation: some Rufous Hummingbirds are green-backed too, and the two overlap on this coast during migration, so I'm calling this Allen's on balance rather than with certainty.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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