Unlimited edition. 18 x 24 inch, museum-quality poster on matte paper.

I’ve never seen a broad-billed hummingbird. (That’s a shame, as they’re splendid little creatures in shimmering, hooded vests of jade, cobalt, mint, and azure, and they possess an impressively bright orange-red bill with a dipped-in-ink tip.) Just yesterday, though, a birder friend visiting Arizona informed me that she’d seen her “lifer” broad-billed and added “there are so many here!” She’s in the right place to see them…and there aren’t many “right places” in the United States. This hummingbird’s breeding range just barely extends into the corners of Arizona and New Mexico that share a border; otherwise, the species calls Mexico home.

Like most hummingbirds, the broad-billed devotes a great deal of time and energy to aggressively defending its feeding and breeding territories. It does so by making threatening vocalizations and pursuing intruders on the wing. If it catches up to a perceived trespasser or competitor, male broadbills will claw, body bump, and even enlist their bill as a weapon. It can be exhausting just watching a male hummingbird fuss and fight; by contrast, the broad-billed hummingbird’s courtship display is mesmerizing. He hovers near a female and then flies back and forth in repeated arcs. This display is often compared to a hypnotist’s swinging pocket watch, although I’d wager the hummer is successful more often than the hypnotist.

Note: These archival poster prints feature rich, appealing colors. I encourage customers to take care in handling them until they are framed/protected for display; the darker colors on the matte paper can be scratched. They ship rolled, so customers need to flatten them before framing (or have their framer do so).

Charitable Sales Model: Whenever one of these poster prints is purchased, a charitable contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost (or $3.60) is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges. Read more about my charitable sales model here.