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“For their body size, hands down, the most aggressive bird is the rufous hummingbird.”

Around these parts, it’s the ruby-throated hummingbird that holds court, though the occasional rufous hummingbird also drops in.

In January I wrote about an unlikely visitor to Green Spring Gardens in Fairfax County: a rufous hummingbird.

If you hear a sustained “zzzzzing” sound and see a flash of cinnamon darting in and out of the salmonberry flowers, you’re hearing a male Rufous hummingbird.

The American robin is such a common species that it doesn’t get the fawning press that, say, the painted bunting or rufous hummingbird does.