View allAll Photos Tagged anna
I have the week off so I had an opportunity to get out early to the riparian preserve. Frankly summer in Phoenix is not the best time of year to go birding, But I enjoyed myself and watched a few hummingbirds enjoying a mesquite tree. This one a female. I’m told by an expert that its probably a black-chinned hummingbird (my original ID was Anna’s Hummingbird)
Anna’s Hummingbirds are mostly green and gray, without any rufous or orange marks on the body. The male's head and throat are covered in iridescent reddish-pink feathers that can look dull brown or gray without direct sunlight.
Anna’s Hummingbirds are a blur of motion as they hover before flowers looking for nectar and insects. Listen for the male's scratchy metallic song and look for him perched above head level in trees and shrubs.
Anna’s Hummingbirds are common in yards, parks, residential streets, eucalyptus groves, riverside woods, savannahs, and coastal scrub. They readily come to hummingbird feeders and flowering plants, including cultivated species in gardens.
Even though our fast little friend isn't side-facing, I really loved showing off the iridescent green against the purple flowers he was feeding on.
A male Anna's Hummingbird at Hulls Gulch, Boise, Idaho. This particular hummingbird was banded on 1/23/21. Note the white mark on its forehead and the purple and orange paint on its chest. This is part of a research project by the Intermountain Bird Observatory department at BSU to study Wintering Hummingbirds in Idaho www.boisestate.edu/ibo/2020/11/25/idahos-winter-warrior-t...
Anna (left) and Joe (right), a grey morphed and a red-morphed eastern screech owl. The next pictures are the four owlets they have.
Click image to view Larger.
The dive display of the Anna's Hummingbird lasts about 12 seconds, and the male may fly to a height of 40 m (131 feet) during the display. He starts by hovering two to four meters (6-13 feet) in front of the display object (hummingbird or person), and then climbs in a wavering fashion straight up. He plummets in a near-vertical dive from the top of the climb and ends with an explosive squeak within half a meter of the display object. He then makes a circular arc back to the point where he began. On sunny days the dives are oriented so that the sun is reflected from the iridescent throat and crown directly at the object of the dive.
Click to view Larger.
Like all hummingbirds, the Anna’s spends much of its life in overdrive. When flying, their hearts, no bigger than an infant’s fingernail, beat 1,200 times a minute. Every 60 seconds they breathe 250 times. In a typical day they will visit hundreds of flowers, dining every 15 minutes. It’s not an idle pursuit — they must consume twice their body weight in insects and nectar on a daily basis just to survive. They drink the nectar with tubular tongues that work like pumps and are so long that, when retracted, coil up inside the birds’ heads, around their skulls and eyes. The nectar, which is 26 per cent sugar, acts like rocket fuel, powering their high-octane lifestyle.
Hummingbirds burn energy faster than any creature except flying insects. An average-sized male human burns between 2,500 and 3,000 calories a day. If a similar-sized hummingbird existed, it would burn more than 150,000 calories a day. American ornithologist Crawford Greene Walt once calculated that if we used energy at that rate that hummingbirds do, our skin would heat up to 400 C. Hummingbirds don’t overheat largely because they have so much exterior and so little interior; no part of them is far enough from the surface to trap much heat. These flying furnaces do cool down at night, however, when they enter torpor and slow their heart rate from a fluttery resting pulse of 21 beats per second to little more than one beat every two seconds.
The ability to slip into a type of hibernation on chilly nights helps the Anna’s survive our cold and rainy winters. The other factor is the abundance of backyard feeders and ornamental flowers found throughout the city, which provide them with a year-round food supply, in addition to the insects, spiders and tree sap they also feed upon.
Texture with thanks to Lenabem Anna
www.flickr.com/photos/lenabem-anna/33712343748/in/album-7...
Edited slightly in Topaz Studio
There is no AI in this image
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Use without permission is illegal.
Please, don't fave and run, you will get yourself blocked.
Our last night on a wonderful trip to Florida graced us with this glorious sunset. Captured on Cortez Beach on Anna Maria Island.
This was the last photo I captured as he flew away. The background hasn't been changed, it's a deep Doug fir canopy.
This is the male Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) that we call Sarg. He has claimed all 5 feeders on the back patio as his own and chases off the Costa's and other hummers.
We absolutely adore Sarg, but Saturday we thought we'd outsmart him and put up one more feeder on the side of the house, in front of my studio window, for the other hummers. Well, let's just shorten this up to say that didn't work. He's one smart hummer!