Migratory Pollinators Program - Rufous Hummingbirds

Migratory Pollinators Program - Rufous Hummingbirds
DesertMuseum.org

Summary
Rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) travel from Mexico to Alaska and back, making the longest bird migration on earth as measured in body lengths. Habitat conversion and fragmentation threaten rufous hummingbird stopover sites along their migratory corridors. Knowledge of migration routing and timing is essential for insuring the persistence of this important pollinator and the pollination services it provides. We identified the locations of rufous hummingbird nectar corridors in northwestern Mexico based on floral distributions and hummingbird behaviors.

There are three potential spring (northward) nectar corridors: Foothills Corridor, Plains of Sonora Corridor, and Gulf Coast Corridor. The Foothills Corridor is in tropical deciduous forest and foothills thornscrub between the Sonoran Desert and the Sierra Madre Occidental north almost to the United States border (30Âº20'N).

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