Plain-capped Starthroat

Overview
Plain-capped Starthroat: Medium-sized hummingbird with iridescent bronze-green upperparts and head, red throat, white face interrupted by black eyestripe, and pale gray underparts. Slightly notched tail is bronze-green with white-tipped black terminal band. Direct and hovering flight.

Range and Habitat
Plain-capped Starthroat: Casual to rare visitor to the U.S. in southeast Arizona; common in Mexico. Preferred habitats include tropical deciduous forests, cottonwood-willow streamside forests, and oak woodlands.

The Plain-capped Starthroat has a large range, estimated globally at 530,000 square kilometers. Native to the United States and Mexico as well as Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, this bird prefers subtropical or tropical forest and shrubland ecosystems, dry savannas, and even plantation land. The global population of this bird has not been precisely determined but does not show signs of decline that would necessitate inclusion on the IUCN Red List. For this reason, the current evaluation status of the Plain-capped Starthroat is Least Concern.

INTERESTING FACTS
The Plain-capped Starthroatstrays casually to southern Arizona in summer and early fall, chiefly to elevations between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. While birders most often find them at feeders, this species prefers hawking insects to taking nectar. A group of hummingbirds has many collective nouns, including a “bouquet", "glittering", "hover", "shimmer", and "tune” of hummingbirds.