Once Upon an Arugula

This gallery contains 6 photos. After giving me a tongue lashing the evening before, I hardly expected this very vocal male Anna’s hummingbird to be in the mellowest of moods on the following evening … but he was! Here he is, giving me a good eyeball of his developing hot pink gorget as he gazes adoringly at the flowering arugula. I didn’t think that hummies liked the flowers of fruits and veggies, but he even gave the flowering lemon a few pecks.

He didn’t even bother the chittering quartet of Black-Capped chickadees, who collectively had been making a racket for the whole day (and ate through a quarter of the sunflower seeds that were replenished just yesterday). And of course the beloved string got his attention, too. The arugula stalks and this string are his favourite places to roost (they’re the right size for his tiny feet!) when he’s not flitting from Bee Balm and Lemon Frost to Fragrant Honeysuckle, Geranium, and Anise Hyssop.

Compared to the feisty (and fussy) Rufous Hummingbirds, who only touch the Anise Hyssop, the Anna’s are much less particular when it comes to nectar. Even the Obedient Plant gets sipped. I snapped many photos this evening of him catching micro naps — sometimes facing me, sometimes with his back to me (now that’s trusting that something bigger won’t walk up and pounce on you!) 😀

He came back (from his two brief but breathtaking dogfights with the other male Anna’s), but for the most part, spent his time sitting (70%) or sipping (30%). So I had plenty of opportunities (almost 200) to capture him in a Zen-like state with two different lenses — 150-500mm telephoto (top 3 photos) and 100mm prime macro (bottom 3 photos).

I got to about 5-6 feet of him, remembering to keep low to the ground. I doubt anything short of another hummer or a cat would have rousted him from his perch; he was too busy chillin’ to be worried about the approaching human, although I was well within his sights. I probably could have gotten even closer, but the other male Anna’s chose that moment to show up, and the rest, as they say, is history. 🙂

Photographing dueling hummingbirds would be about as difficult as photographing the hummingbird moth drinking nectar. I can’t wait for this little guy to get his full balaclava! Photographed on the evening of August 28. These will probably be my last photos of hummingbirds for this year.