MetaChat - A male Anna's Hummingbird has claimed the courtyard as his.

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15 April 2011

A male Anna's Hummingbird has claimed the courtyard as his. →[More:]He sits on the telephone wires across the street, at the end of a dead branch on one of our roses and the top of a spruce tree. Among other places. And he sings from dawn to dusk.

He looks like this on perch. Just a little bit bigger than that and with an all black gorge, that is, throat, and forehead, which he can flash bright red orange if he is of a mind. Quite startling up close, quite visible from across the street. It's like a little flare. (I think that picture linked was taken when that male was just starting to flash his gorge. Our little guy is all black in the appropriate areas until he lets his freak flag fly.)

Once you learn their oh so quiet reedy buzzing song, you don't forget it. And then you realize how many there are, at least, that is, hereabouts in Seattle. Capitol Hill seems to have one or two on every block right now.

We had a female nesting in a big blue spruce in one of our parking lots two summers ago. I caught her once hovering upwards into the branches to her nest when I was nearby.

Or rather she caught me catching her hovering upwards and took off like an X-wing fighter going into hyperdrive. Which they do -- they are the fastest of birds.

And then she circled the parking lot and tried to come up behind me. Only I was wise to her game --birds hate it when you see them going to a nest-- and turned to face her.

And when I did, she was coming up the sidewalk, from bush to bush.

She then stopped about ten feet away and hovered at eye level and looked me in the eyes. Until I turned my back and let her be.

It was one of those mystical with a small 'm' moments.

I saw her go up into those branches more than once and heard her little chicks squealing when she did but I never saw them or the nest.

I do love me some hummingbirds. I am quite tickled to see that guy wheezing out his little quiet little song at the end of the rose branch each morning when I go to get coffee.

I do so hope he swings successfully and we get another nesting female this summer. That will be delightful.

post by: y2karl at: 20:17 | 6 comments

I love hummingbirds. We have a bunch here, but nothing in the garden they love, so they come by mostly when they're trying to bully the (totally sedate) cat into submission. We just ordered some hibiscuses to attract (appease!) them.

Right after my mother died, there was an Anna's hummingbird that used to hang out on my fence and watch over me. Now, every time I see a hummingbird taking a special notice of me, it feels like my mother checking in. It's nice.

posted by occhiblu 15 April | 23:02

Aww, occhiblu. :)

My Anna's have been protesting the sorry state of my feeders. They still have some scummy liquid left in them from last fall. I need to clean them out and restock them, but I haven't quite gotten to it yet. I have two little guys who swoop in here, inspect the feeders, and then stare impatiently through the back windows. I swear, if they were on the ground, they'd stomp their feet petulantly. And they're right -- I really do need to step up.

My favorite Anna's hummingbird story, though, is a bit different. When I first moved to CA, I signed up for a local birding listserv just to get a sense of what was around here, what people were excited about. As you might imagine, the listserv was populated by very earnest birders. One day, someone told a story about an Anna's hummingbird, but they misspelled it as "Anus hummingbird." The responses were quick and witty. My favorite said something like "I'm sure happy not to be its nest."

posted by mudpuppie 16 April | 00:10

I have two little guys who swoop in here, inspect the feeders, and then stare impatiently through the back windows. I swear, if they were on the ground, they'd stomp their feet petulantly. And they're right -- I really do need to step up.

The solution is only good for a week -- then you need to change it. You really do. I know I have fallen down on the job and the birds stopped coming.

I noticed the little guy in the courtyard deserted us for a day when I was late changing it out this week.

An ancillary thought I have is Just how big is his territory ? He can fly a block in three seconds, I swear.

I have a friend who lives on a houseboat on Lake Union. One night it snowed and froze and his feeders were filled with ice the next morning.

Six hummingbirds were sitting on various perches staring in his window.

I know I spent one day, back when it froze hard, swapping out my two feeders, filling one with hot solution, putting it out and taking it in when it began to freeze up and putting the next warm one out.

It just amazes me that they can survive overnight in a hard freeze. Heck, it just amazes me that they can survive overnight, period.

posted by y2karl 16 April | 00:34

I think what really makes them like our yard is the Chilean glory vine. The nest we had in the spruce tree was about twenty feet away from ours. I would see our hummingbird there every day in high summer.

Plus others -- judging from the dogfights being waged overhead. They corkscrew in double spirals over the parking lot like a Star Wars battle scene on fast forward and then stop in mid-air and hover and try to stab one another with their beaks. It's like an aerial dogfight and swordfight all at the same time.

And the noises they make -- high pitched squeaks ans squeals that sound like a tape being rewound. And Anna's are commonly described as being less pugnacious in temperament than Rufous's. Yikes.

I know for a fact that Langley Gardens sells it as starts at their booth at the Sunday West Seattle Farmer's Market. And they sell starts of night scented stock as well. It's just about time for them to start showing up at that farmer's market, too.

posted by y2karl 16 April | 00:49

Heh. I had one hover six inches from my face this morning. I was cleaning up a broken light bulb in front of an evergreen huckleberry, and an Anna's buzzed on over to eat at the berry bush. Pretty damn cool.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 17 April | 00:27

Well, finally, thanks to my neighbor Kris, I can add some pictures.

There he is, in all his diminutive glory.

posted by y2karl 21 April | 11:09

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