Mexican Sheartail
Where and when to see the Mexican Sheartail
DraftMostly in Yucatán state
It lives along the north coast of Yucatán state: dune scrub, mangrove edges and gardens in the coastal towns, and up to about 4 km inland in low dry forest. Look for it perched on bare, sticking-out twigs or feeding at low flowers.
Where it’s reported most
We don’t name sites, so as not to disturb an endangered species.
When
All year · most reports Aug–Nov
Most reports from August to November.
Reports relative to effort
- January: 77%
- February: 62%
- March: 56%
- April: 57%
- May: 63%
- June: 58%
- July: 63%
- August: 72%
- September: 100%
- October: 75%
- November: 79%
- December: 67%
Data: eBird and other datasets via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), 2015–2026 · Base map: Natural Earth
Endemic to the coastal Yucatan. Nearly the whole world population of this hummingbird lives on this peninsula and nowhere else on earth.
- Identification
- A tiny hummingbird with a long, slightly curved black bill. The male has a glittering rose-purple throat, white underparts with green sides and a long, deeply forked tail, usually held closed. The female is whitish below with cinnamon flanks and a short tail with rufous, black and white corners.
- Voice
- Its call is a rapid, fairly hard chipping. In flight its wings hum like an insect, and the courting male adds a dry, buzzy “zz-zz-zzt”.
What the photo doesn’t show
DraftScissors shut
Watch the tail while it feeds: the male holds his long, forked tail almost upright and closed, like shut scissors, while the female wags her short one quickly. 1
Up, down and alongside
To court a perched female, the male hovers in front of her, swinging back and forth and side to side, then shoots 10–15 m straight up and drops back down to land beside her. Researchers watched the full display twice on the Yucatán coast in 2011. 1,2
Two populations, one country
It lives only in Mexico, in two populations far apart: one in a small area of central Veracruz, the other on the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. The Yucatán coast holds most of the birds, an estimated 6,000–10,000 against fewer than 2,500 in Veracruz. 3,4
Building over its scrub
About half of Yucatán state’s coastal dune vegetation is already gone, and summer homes, condominiums and hotels keep going up on the very scrub where it nests. 2,5
Sources
- Neotropical Birds (Cornell Lab): Mexican Sheartail, Behavior (opens in a new tab)
- Huitzil 14(2): 139–145 (opens in a new tab)
- BirdLife International, Data Zone: Mexican Sheartail (opens in a new tab)
- Neotropical Birds (Cornell Lab): Mexican Sheartail, Distribution (opens in a new tab)
- Desde el Herbario CICY 5: 34–35 (opens in a new tab)
- DOF, 14/11/2019: NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, Anexo III (opens in a new tab)
Map and months: 4,381 records from 2015–2026 from eBird, iNaturalist, and others, via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), in 0.1° squares (about 10 km). eBird: doi.org/10.15468/aomfnb.
Months: the species’ records ÷ all bird records that month, scaled to the busiest month. It allows for birding effort; it is not the chance of seeing it. A blank square: few or no reports, not necessarily absent.
Tell us where, or ask how to find one.
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