An unexpected visitor to the Canadian prairies has been named Yosemite Sam in honour of the place he came from.

Executive Director Jan Shaddick with Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation in Saskatoon says a Costa’s Hummingbird who was discovered by a city resident in October is doing wonderfully.

She says they were worried the long winter in Saskatoon in captivity would be stressful and he wouldn’t’ make it. She says he has made it about halfway through and they still have some of those concerns.

“He has fruit flies in there and flowers and he has very special nectar that we had to bring up from the U.S., a very particular part of the set of ingredients had to come out of the U.S.”

At the beginning of last winter, they were denied by the provincial government when they applied for an export permit. Shaddick is hoping that as they get closer to what would be a reasonable release date, they can successfully re-approach the government and it would consider granting an export permit so they can get him back to his home range where he should be living.

She says the process has been amazing from the gentleman who spotted the bird and borrowed feeders from a neighbour, then reached out to the rehab and got the bird secured in his garage the day before a major snowstorm. There was also one of their volunteers who does hummingbird banding and was able trap the hummingbird as well as conduct research and measurements that determined his purple throat or gorget was that of the Costa’s Hummingbird.

And finally, there were the researchers who wanted to do isotope testing on a feather. That process determined this Costa’s Hummingbird is from the northern most part of its breeding territory in the Sierra Nevada near Yosemite and that his how he came by his name.