Uyen arrives at the lab from the field with a hummingbird safely carried in a bag.

Erin and I catching a female Costa’s Hummingbird. We have been having very good luck trapping females at the nest. We are still working on the best way to catch male Costa’s on territories. After we catch them, we quickly band them, take a couple of feathers for DNA and then release them. This is part of a study of breeding behavior and reproductive success. We are interested in Costa’s because they show some fascinating adaptations to an extremely arid environment.

What I love most about The Reserve, which we drive through every time we enter or exit our field station, is that it is landscaped with native vegetation. I think of it as “Sonoran on Steroids”, because it is filled with desert plants, but they are closely packed and watered. It is hummingbird heaven - loaded with flowering chuparosa and brittlebush, hummingbird feeders and misters at many homes. There is a Costa’s Hummingbird at about every fourth tree as you drive from our field station to the gated entrance.

Dr. Muth, describing the geology of a nearby mountain ridge

Al Muth, the field station director, asked the students in my lab to give a brief talk about their research to our visitors. This stretched into thirty minutes of lively questions and discussion about hummingbirds, black-throated sparrows, and desert ecology. I was impressed with the questions; they were clearly based on thoughtful observation of and appreciation for the natural world.

Uyen Tran, preparing to play Costa's Hummingbird song

Cory Castro, showing her new research species, the Black-Throated Sparrow

I was also impressed with Cory and Uyen (with Will, Ben and Sergio providing backup). We had been running around the desert catching birds for hours and were dirty and tired when our visitors showed up at 4:00 pm. But they still managed to be articulate and enthusiastic. I just wish the rest of the lab could have been there to “wow” our neighbors. Maybe next year, during the third annual golf cart flotilla.

I couldn’t find anything like this in the literature, but Peter Siminski at Living Desert mentioned that he sees them tumble to the ground when they copulate.

Below is a picture of a female chasing a male Costa’s from a chuparosa at Desert Willow Golf Course. We checked out the grounds on Monday, hoping to find a population of Anna’s in the area (we found lots of Anna’s on golf courses in Anza Borrego, but have had more trouble finding a good sized population around Palm Desert).