Visitors 64
Modified 3-Mar-23
Created 28-Feb-23
98 photos
A colorful male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) sits at the crown of a bare oak, showing off. He looks back and forth; tests the air with his tongue; blinks. He takes off, then returns to the same spot, time and again. His colors are dazzling, shimmering, ever-shifting.
I pause to watch. The lighting is perfect, the bird facing me. What a show!
I doubt the hummingbird is not doing all this for me and my camera. Hummingbirds do catch and eat insects, returning to the same perch after each foray. But this feels like more than utilitarian hunting. What could explain such a display? Sex!!
I imagine there must have been a female in the area -- perhaps watching with interest, from just over my shoulder? Or the showoff was hoping for one. Or, possibly, trying to intimidate a potential male rival.
Do you have any other ideas?
In any case, I feel lucky to have watched this -- with a camera at the ready. The photos let me see much more than I noticed at the time --magnified and frozen in time.
Here are almost 100 photos, in chronological order. The hummingbird displayed his finery with me for over seven minutes -- believe me, this is a long time, try standing, observing, and just breathing for this time. Between 8:14 and 8:21 am, 2/25/2023. He left the perch several times -- once, I put down my camera and walked down the path, only to glance up and see him there again. So I took some photos from below, then walked back up for a better angle, as he continued his show. Might this full sequence make a nice screen saver?
He perched at the apex of the bare (Valley?) Oak below the terminus of Deer Path Trail, next to Valley Oak just across from the vineyard.
If you want to see just five selected photos of this encounter, arranged in a nice sequence, move your mouse nearby.
Enjoy!
