The Northern Hummingbird

Anna's hummingbirds don't actually have the northern-most range of any hummingbird species. That distinction goes to the rufous hummingbird, who is found as far north as southern Alaska in the summer time. And the summer range of ruby-throated hummingbirds beats that of Anna's hummingbirds by a few degrees of latitude. But during the winter Anna's hummingbirds live hundreds of miles farther north than any of North America's other eighteen species. This species, a year-round resident of the west coast, has significantly expanded its range since 1950 when they weren't found north of southern California and northern Baja California. Now they have spread east into Arizona and north through Oregon and Washington up into British Columbia.

Anna's Hummingbird, Calypte anna, female at red-flowering currant.

Anna's hummingbird male.

The range expansion of Anna's hummingbirds is generally attributed to the nectar provided by exotic garden and landscape plants that flower during naturally flowerless months, and to the ever-increasing popularity of hummingbird feeders. They are also known to take advantage of another food resource that certainly could have aided their dispersal, and is not provided by humans. Sapsuckers are woodpeckers that cut small holes through tree bark causing the leakage of sap. Like the makers of these sap wells Anna's, and migrating rufous, hummingbirds drink the sap and eat the insects it attracts. 

People sometimes seem surprised to learn that hummingbirds eat insects. But all animals need protein, regardless of where they get it. In fact a great many bird species eat insects at certain times in their lives, especially as rapidly-growing chicks. No bird can live on sugary nectar, or sugar water from hummingbird feeders, alone. But hummingbirds sure can burn up the sugar. Fast metabolisms are characteristic of small, endothermic ("warm-blooded") animals. Small bodies have high surface area to volume ratios which cause them to loose large amounts of heat to their environments. Add to this bit of physics the blur of wing beats that enables hummingbirds to hover and zip about in a blur and you get a high energy budget indeed. Anna's are apparently low on the hummingbird wing-beat spectrum, at a mere fifty beats per second. That's three thousand wing beats per minute.

Drinking the nectar of orange trumpet honeysuckle, a native flowering vine of Pacific Northwest forests. These long, tubular flowers are characteristic of hummingbird pollinated species. Hummingbirds' bills conceal even longer tongues which are used to access the nectaries deep inside such flowers.

This furious flapping is associated with a blazing body temperature of one hundred seven degrees Fahrenheit. Maintaining such a temperature at rest poses a severe challenge to such a small creature on cold nights. Hummingbirds avoid this potentially fatal energy expenditure by going into torpor when necessary. Torpor is a state of reduced metabolic activity that enables many endothermic animals to conserve precious calories during cold weather. Breathing and heart rate are reduced while sleeping, significantly lowering an animal's body temperature. In the case of Anna's hummingbirds body temperature can get as low as forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, less than half of their active temperature. This physiology has surely been essential to Anna's hummingbirds' northward range expansion.  

Having these amazing little creatures around all year really is a treat, and in Seattle there is a very healthy population of them. Hummingbirds are a favorite subject of many wildlife photographers, and that certainly includes me. When i started trying to photograph them a couple years back it was a struggle to get any decent images. They're so tiny, and so  fast. But as I got to know them better, and got better with my camera I slowly started accumulating images of these captivating critters. The two main things that have helped me get pictures of Anna's hummingbirds are knowing their voices so I can find them perched and knowing which flowers they prefer to feed at. Below I have collected some favorite images of Anna's hummingbirds perched and feeding on flower nectar. I hope you enjoy them!

"You there! I said, NO PICTURES!"

There's a nice symmetry to this one. It's also at least a little suggestive of a heart, which is appropriate for an image of such a lovable bird.

Enjoying the early-spring nectar of flowering currants.

Little buddy on little buds. Notice the white pollen on the tip of his bill, which came from the white currant flowers in the previous photo.

Resting in an ossoberry (aka Indian plum) bush. The fresh green leaves and dangling white flowers flowers of this native shrub light up deciduous forests in the Pacific Northwest in February or March. A most welcome appearance of life and color at this drab, gray time of year, especially when further adorned by the feathered jewel that is a male Anna's hummingbird. 

A sub-adult male declares his territorial claim. Hummingbirds are very vocal. I frequently use their calls to locate them, but have a hard time describing those calls. In "The Sibley Guide to the Birds" David Allen Sibley impressively writes them out phonetically. "Chase call a rapid, dry chatter zrrr jika jika jika jika. Song from perch scratchy, thin, and dry sturee sturee sturee, sccrrrr, zveeee, street street." So, yeah, what he said.

Anna's hummingbirds do not frequent dance clubs, but some are known to shake it from time to time.

Male hummingbirds really are fierce little critters. Look at that face!

Nice helmet, dude.

This red flowering currant bush is sideways, but that's no problem for this little lady. 

Thanks for reading my blog! If you're particularly fond of any of these images you can get inexpensive prints of them at my portfolio website. Find that link, and links to my Facebook and Instagram at the top of this page.