RAINIER AUDUBON SOCIETY

"Mighty and Tiny: The Territorial World of Hummingbirds"
2026-04-20 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Federal Way United Methodist Church, 29645 51st Ave SWA 98001, Auburn, Washington, 98001, United States
by Alyssa J. Sargent

What does a day in the life of a hummingbird entail? Where do they travel, and which rival is worth attacking? Does it pay off to stay near home, saving energy for inevitable battle, or to fly further afield—facing new perils—to find food? Cutting-edge technologies can help us to answer these questions. In my PhD, I study hummingbirds in Colombia using “on-board” devices, which we equip to the birds themselves; these tiny electronics allow us to map where individual hummingbirds disappear to, how active they really are, and how thick the competition can get at a given feeder. Come join me and take a peek, up close, at the swashbuckling lives of the world’s smallest birds!

Alyssa J. Sargent is a PhD candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Washington, where she’s a part of the Behavioral Ecophysics Lab. In her current work, she studies the swashbuckling, drama-packed lives of hummingbirds in Colombia. Alyssa loves to come up with creative ways to share her research with people—including a bilingual board game, “Hummingbird Sugar Rush” (“Fiebre de Azúcar en Colibríes”)—to teach people about the decisions hummingbirds must make every day. Throughout her career, she’s studied birds in Australia, Portugal, Ecuador, Canada, Puerto Rico, and numerous states.
