Calliope Hummingbird - DU (Denver)

[Jared Del Rosso]

For a lot of reasons, DU has a relatively short eBird checklist. So anything that's not our most common, year-round birds is news to me when I see it on campus. 

A hummingbird that I take for a Calliope (my one photo shows a squarish tail shorter than its wings and my general impression is that it's small, even for a hummingbird) was feeding at Agastache rupestris ("Sunset Hyssop") in the xeric garden behind the Sie Complex.

Even in the heat of noon, the patch of agastache smelled of licorice. What a wonderful plant.

Soon, perhaps, a Rock Wren will visit the "sunken," dry garden in the Iliff parking lot, as one has a few years going now. It's such a strange place to find a migrating bird -- a 20-30 foot long planting, maybe 10 feet wide, maybe 6 or 7 feet deep, with rocks (appropriately enough for the bird) in the middle of a parking lot. 

- Jared Del Rosso

Centennial, CO