A rare hummingbird at a Pennsylvania feeder is part of a new migration trend

PITTSBURGH — After returning from a trip Nov. 2, an Oakmont, Pa., man was surprised to find a white speck, smaller than an apple seed, on his hummingbird feeder.

A hummingbird dropping? It looked promising. An hour later, Ron Burkert saw a hummingbird at his feeder and quickly grabbed his cell phone to take photos. Later, he used his digital camera to capture high-resolution images to identify the species.

National Aviary ornithologist Bob Mulvihill, who has tracked and banded hummingbirds in the winter, reviewed the photos and identified the bird as a rufous hummingbird.

The rufous hummer is a roughly 3-inch-long spitfire that breeds in areas from southern Alaska to Northern California and also in northwestern states, then winters in Mexico and, increasingly, along the Gulf Coast as well.

"It's certainly interesting to see a hummingbird when there is snow around and in frigid temperatures," said Mike Fialkovich, president of the Three Rivers Birding Club.

"These temperatures might not be as hard on them as you would think."

The feisty rufous hummingbird withstands Rocky Mountain spring snow and is considered a rarity in Pennsylvania, although a handful visit each winter.

Research in the last three decades has uncovered that many individual rufous hummingbirds are following a new migration route that takes them from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast.

Instead of migrating only from southern Alaska and the U.S. Northwest to Mexico, some of those tiny migrants have been flying from their breeding grounds to Louisiana "with a layover in the Pittsburgh area," said Mulvihill, who banded the winter hummingbirds for two decades in Western Pennsylvania and neighboring states as part of a research project exploring the emerging...