I'm back in my hometown of Pleasanton, CA for a few more days before starting the first major leg of my journey. Pleasanton is such a beautiful town with a high diversity of plant and wild life and each time I come home I notice a new species or interesting migrations that occur in this small town. My mother and I have been working on their backyard for a few years now and it is now home to several species of songbirds and insects. I spent a few hours this week taking pictures of the various bird species that habitually visit our various feeders.
Today I took special notice of the bossy hummingbird that has made our backyard feeder his personal territory. For any of you who have hummingbird feeders you have probably noticed a similar male taking charge of your feeders as well. It's pretty comical watching this ping pong ball sized bird try to scare off other hummers, as well as, larger house finches. I was lucky enough to catch a shot of one of these daring encounters...slightly blurry but you can see the hummer approaching the feeder and the finch rerouting.
Anna's Hummingbirds (Calypte anna) are the most common hummingbird on the Pacific Coast and are recognized by their gorgeous iridescent throat patch called a gorget. Both males and females have these colorful feathers, on males it covers their throat and most of the head and on females it can remain a tiny patch at the throat.
These small birds feed on nectar from various plants, small insects, and tree sap so having a few of these food options in your backyard will increase your chances of getting a peak of them. Anna's Hummingbirds are quite the showboats especially when it comes to their wild courtship dives and displays. With wing beats of 50-200 beats per second, they can reach speeds of 30 miles an hour in forward flight and 60 miles an hour in dive. Hummingbird wing movement is very unique in that the upward stroke is just as powerful as the down stroke which allows them to hover in place for as long as 50 minutes. This evolutionary adaptation combined with the amazing rotation of the shoulder joint (almost 180 degrees) makes these little birds true aerial acrobats.
Photo Credit: acravan.blogspot.com
Anna's hummingbirds have more than one mating partner a season and will end up building tiny nests in deciduous trees close to a food source. The 1"x 1.5" nest is built in about a week and is made of plant matter and held together with spider webs. They usually lay two white eggs which are not even a half inch in diameter. Hatchlings are raised only by the mother and are out of the nest in about 20 days.
Photo Credit: learner.org
Hummingbirds are fascinating creatures that have evolved in some interesting ways that scientists are still researching. I caught a few more pictures of our little guy in flight around the feeder and added some great links at the bottom if you want to learn more about hummingbirds.
Happy Friday!!
Photo Credit: Trevor Adler
Fun/Current Hummingbird Info
Find awesome Anna's hummingbird facts here
Current research being done at UC Riverside on hummingbird flight shows more accurately how they are able to hover
A couple hummingbird garden resources for those with a bit of a green thumb...or working on developing theirs:
Sugar solution: To make your own hummingbird food, mix 1 part sugar to 4 parts water. Boil together and cool before filling your hummingbird feeder. To ensure the health of your garden birds, clean feeders often. And do not use colored commercial pre-mixed solutions.
No comments:
Post a Comment