Status and Occurrence of Costa’s Hummingbird (Calypte costae) in British Columbia
by Rick Toochin and Don Cecile
Read the full article with photos here.
Introduction and Distribution
Costa’s Hummingbird (Calypte costae) is a spectacular looking species that is found as a year round resident in most of its breeding range, which is the Sonoran desert. (Howell 2003). Costa’s Hummingbird occurs commonly from southern California, south throughout the Baja Peninsula as well as east to the adjacent areas of south eastern California into southwestern Arizona; and east to the extreme south western corner of New Mexico, north into southern Nevada and south western Utah (Howell 2003, Dunn and Alderfer 2011). The range of Costa’s Hummingbird extends south into western Mexico with residents in the Pacific Sonora and wintering further south in the Sinaloa areas of western Mexico (Howell and Webb 2010). A small number of birds are found in Texas and Kansas from the months of January to late March and September to December. North of California, the Costa’s Hummingbird is a rare, but increasing, vagrant to Oregon, where it is no longer a review species by the Oregon Bird Records Committee with over 40 records and a breeding record (Wahl et al. 2005, OBO 2012). In Washington, Costa’s Hummingbird is a bit more rare with 9 accepted records by the Washington Bird Records Committee (WBRC 2012). There are 2 accepted records in Idaho by the Idaho Bird Records Committee, and at least 1 by the Alberta Bird Records Committee. In British Columbia, the Costa’s Hummingbird is a rare to casual, but increasing, vagrant with over 20 Provincial records (Campbell et al. 1990, Toochin et al. 2014a, Please see Table 1). In Alaska, the Costa’s Hummingbird is considered a casually occurring species with at least 6 state records (West 2008).
