Bruce Bagemihl - Biological Exuberance

Behavioral Expression: Male Long-tailed Hermit Hummingbirds gather on their leks or courtship display territories in dense, stream-side thickets, singing to advertise their presence and attract birds to mate with. Their monotonous songs consist of single notes of various types—sometimes transliterated as kaching, churk, shree , or chrrik —repeated for up to 30 minutes at a time. Females and males visit the leks, and both sexes may be courted and mounted by the territorial males. In a typical homosexual encounter, a male approaches another male that has landed on his territory and performs an aerial maneuver known as the FLOAT. In this display, he slowly flies back and forth in front of the perched male, pivoting his body from side to side. Often he holds his bill wide open, exposing his bright orange mouth lining and striking facial stripes, which combine to produce an arresting visual pattern. The perched bird may respond by gaping his own bill and “tracking” the movements of the swiveling and hovering male in front of him, always keeping his bill pointed toward him. The courting male then circles behind the other male and copulates with him: he alights on the other male’s back, quivering his wings while twisting and vibrating his tail to achieve cloacal (genital) contact. Homosexual copulations are generally somewhat briefer than the three-to-five-second duration of heterosexual matings, and the mountee may fail to cooperate (for example by not twisting his own tail to facilitate genital contact).

Male Anna’s Hummingbirds also court and mount both females and males (including juvenile males). These birds usually visit the male’s territory to feed on his supply of nectar-rich currant and gooseberry blossoms. If a visiting male lands on a perch, the territorial male usually performs a spectacular DIVE DISPLAY toward him. He first hovers above the other male and utters a few bzz notes, then climbs nearly vertically in a wavering path of 150 feet or more, peering down at the other male. At the top of his climb, he suddenly dives downward at immense speed, making a shrill, metallic popping or squeaking sound just as he swoops over the other male. He then repeats the entire performance several more times. The startlingly loud sound at the end of his dives is produced by air rushing through his tail feathers and is often preceded by vocalizations such as various trilled or buzzing notes. A dive-bombing male actually orients his acrobatic display precisely to face the sun, dazzling the object of his attentions with the shimmering, iridescent, rose-colored feathers of his crown and throat. On cloudy days, he rarely performs such dives since the mesmerizing visual effect cannot be achieved. After a dive display the other male usually flies off—with the territorial male in close pursuit—and seeks refuge by perching in a low clump of vegetation away from the territory. The pursuing male sings intensely at him, uttering a loud and complex sequence of notes that sounds like bzz-bzz-bzz chur-zwEE dzi! dzi! bzz-bzz-bzz. He may also perform a SHUTTLE DISPLAY (similar to the Long-tailed Hermit’s float), flying back and forth above the other male, tracing a series of arcs with his body. A homosexual copulation attempt may then follow, with the male landing on the other’s back as in a heterosexual mount. If the mounted male tries to get away, the pursuing male may knock him down, grappling and tumbling with him while emitting low-pitched, gurgling brrrt notes (similar aggressive interactions are also characteristic of heterosexual mating attempts; see below).

Frequency: Although homosexual copulations are not frequent in these species, neither are heterosexual ones, and a relatively high proportion of sexual activity—up to 25 percent—actually occurs between males. During several extensive studies, two out of eight observed copulations in Long-tailed Hermits were between males, while one out of four sexual encounters in Anna’s Hummingbirds (where the sexes of the birds could reliably be determined) was homosexual. Moreover, when male Anna’s Hummingbirds are presented with stuffed birds of both sexes, they court and mount the males as frequently as they do the females.

Orientation: In Long-tailed Hermit Hummingbirds, approximately 7 percent of territorial males and 11 percent of all males participate in homosexual activity. Territorial males in both of these hummingbird species are probably bisexual, pursuing, courting, and mounting both females and males. Some of the male Long-tailed Hermits who visit other males’ territories are nonbreeders (they do not have their own territories), which means they probably do not participate in any heterosexual activity (at least for the duration of that breeding season). Male Anna’s Hummingbirds usually strongly resist being mounted by other males, perhaps indicating a more heterosexual orientation on their part (although females also sometimes resist heterosexual mating attempts).

Heterosexual mating in Anna’s Hummingbirds can have all of the aggressive and even violent characteristics described above for homosexual matings—males pursue females in high-speed chases and sometimes even strike them in midair, forcing them down in order to copulate. Some matings are also nonreproductive since they take place outside of the breeding season. Males in this species have their own distinct seasonal sexual cycle, with their sperm production and hormone levels greatly reduced from July through November. Male Anna’s Hummingbirds also frequently court females of other species such as the Allen hummingbird ( Selas - phorus sasin ) and Costa’s hummingbird ( Calypte costae ). Among Long-tailed Hermit Hummingbirds (as well as other species of hermit hummingbirds), males often “masturbate” by mounting and copulating with small, inanimate objects (including leaves suspended in spiderwebs).

Other than when mating, however, males and females in both of these species rarely meet. In Anna’s Hummingbirds, the two sexes occupy distinct habitats during the breeding season—males frequent open areas such as hill slopes or the sides of canyons, females occupy more covered, forested areas. Each female Long-tailed Hermit usually encounters males only once every two to four weeks when she visits the lekking areas prior to nesting. Males of both species take no part in nesting or raising of young. In addition, a significant number of birds are nonbreeders: nearly a quarter of all Long-tailed Hermit males are nonterritorial and therefore do not participate in heterosexual courtship or copulation, while of those who hold territories, only some get to mate with females.

*asterisked references discuss homosexuality/transgender

Gohier, F., and N. Simmons-Christie (1986) “Portrait of Anna’s Hummingbird.” Animal Kingdom 89:30–33.

Hamilton, W. J., III (1965) “Sun-Oriented Display of the Anna’s Hummingbird.” Wilson Bulletin 77:38–44.

*Johnsgard, P. A. (1997) “Long-tailed Hermit” and “Anna Hummingbird.” In The Hummingbirds of North America, 2nd ed., pp. 65–69, 195–99. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Ortiz-Crespo, F. I. (1972) “A New Method to Separate Immature and Adult Hummingbirds.” Auk 89:851–57.

Russell, S. M. (1996) “Anna’s Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ).” In A. Poole and F. Gill, eds., The Birds of North America: Life Histories for the 21st Century , no. 226. Philadelphia: Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, D.C.: American Ornithologists’ Union.