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The Allen Hummingbirds in Golden Gate Park

H. J. Taylor

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In the May, 1926, CONDOR (XXVII, p. 98) Dr. H. C. Bryant has given observations on the nesting of the Allen Hummingbird near the Chain of Lakes in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. As further evidence of these birds selecting this as a nesting territory, I give the observations of March 26, 1927, in this same region.

We discovered fourteen nests of the Allen Hummingbird (Selasphorue alleni). Most of these were in a small area of pine and cypress trees just west of the Forty-third Street entrance to the Park. Of the fourteen nests, two were in the crotches of small branches, and twelve were saddled on branches. The lowest nest was four feet from the ground. It was unfinished and contained one egg. Another nest, containing two eggs, was seven feet from the ground. The others ranged in height up to twenty feet. About half of the nests showed only gray lichens on the outside. The others were mixed with green. On four of the nests we found the female sitting. One of these birds had some building material in her bill. The male birds were found some distance from the nesting site and in a more open space.

No bird demonstration is more interesting and fascinating than the pendulum swing of the male Allen Hummingbird. He swings through an arc of ninety degrees or more, several times, then making a loop at one end of the arc, he suddenly drops down as straight and as swift as an arrow. In a moment he repeats the swing, then suddenly flies straight upward and alights on a branch, sixty or seventy feet above the ground.

Berkeley, California, April 19, 1927

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