Black-chinned Hummingbird print

A spray of flowering desert sage, and a bird suspended at its edge. The Black-chinned Hummingbird hovers, wings a blur at mid-beat, that needle of a bill angled toward the bloom. The Audubon-style palette is cool and sun-bleached here: dusty silver-green of sage, the bird’s grey-green back, a cream ground behind. And at the throat, if the angle is right, a thin band of iridescent violet above the black chin.

Archilochus alexandri is a bird of the dry American West - canyons, desert washes, river edges, foothills from southern British Columbia down through California, Utah, Colorado, and Texas. It is 9 to 11 centimetres long and weighs between 2 and 5 grams. At those dimensions, the bird spends a significant portion of its energy budget on temperature regulation. It meets that cost with extraordinary aerial efficiency: hovering, then darting sideways or backward in an instant, then hovering again with the same apparent stillness.

The throat is the field mark that matters. At rest, in flat light, the male’s chin looks plain black. Turn your head, or wait for the bird to shift, and a narrow line of violet flares across the lower border. That is alexandri. Females and young birds carry no throat colour and show a plain pale chin, which is why this plate - with the male angled to show the gorget - is the print that names the species.

A single bird at its plant, in the manner of the old natural-history folios. In the tradition of Audubon, for the wall.

Full field guide: /species/black-chinned-hummingbird/

Printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm.