Rufous or Allen's Hummingbird

Selasphorus sp. · Hummingbirds

Hummingbird at canna

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A hummingbird at a canna bed in a San Diego garden in the last light of the day. The rufous flanks and green back put it in Selasphorus, Rufous or Allen's, the two rufous hummingbirds of the Pacific coast, and the two are famously hard to separate: on females and young birds it comes down to the width of particular tail feathers, which no photograph from the side will show.

Canna is not a hummingbird flower by design. It is pollinated by bees and butterflies in its native range, but the deep red tubes are close enough to the shape hummingbirds hunt for that they work it anyway.

Hummingbird approaching canna

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A hummingbird coming in to a canna bed in a San Diego garden in the last light of the day. The rufous flanks put it among the Selasphorus hummingbirds, Rufous or Allen's, the two rufous hummingbirds of the Pacific coast; Allen's breeds here and Rufous passes through in March on its way to Alaska.

Canna is not a hummingbird flower by design - it is pollinated by bees and butterflies in its native range - but the tubular red flowers are close enough to the shape a hummingbird hunts for that they work them anyway. The two species are not safely told apart from a photograph of a female.

Hummingbird in flight, rufous flanks

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A hummingbird hovering in a San Diego garden, wings blurred mid-beat and tail fanned for the stop. The rufous wash through the flanks and tail base points to Selasphorus rather than Anna's - Allen's, which breeds on this coast, or Rufous, which passes through in March on the longest migration of any hummingbird, Mexico to Alaska.

As with the other birds in this garden, female and immature Rufous and Allen's aren't reliably told apart from an image like this one; it comes down to the width of particular tail feathers.

Hummingbird in the coral tree

San Diego Botanic Garden, 7 March 2026

A hummingbird in a coral tree in a San Diego garden in March, at the nectar the tree offers on bare wood before its leaves come. This is the Selasphorus corner of the country: Allen's breeds on this coast and Rufous passes through in spring on its way to Alaska, and both work the same flowers.

Rufous flanks and, on this bird, a back that is mostly rufous too, with green confined to the shoulders, which leans toward an adult male Rufous rather than an Allen's, whose back stays solidly green. It isn't quite enough to settle it: a small proportion of male Rufous carry more green on the back than this, and from behind the two overlap.