Baron of the Backyard

This gallery contains 3 photos. It is said that the youngest are often the most brash, and, as in the human kingdom, so it is with birds. This fellow has had his “nightcaps” just inches from my face this summer (ever felt the downdraft from a hummingbird’s wings in your face? At 50-80 times per second, it’s like having a personal fan and electronic repeller rolled into one package). Photographed in the evening of August 19.

a young male Anna’s hummingbird by sunset light.
f/6.3, 1/320, 150-500mm telephoto lens, 439mm, ISO 800

Anna’s hummingbirds are all year rounders in Metro Vancouver, Canada. I found out this two years ago when I first met my first Anna’s in the backyard on a late fall day … a jewel of a male, making his acquaintance with the new plastic pink nectar feeder that we had strung up two weeks before (three more nectar feeders have since been added). Male Anna’s take up to a year to fully develop their pink crowns and gorgets. Photographed on August 23.

the same fellow on the old apple tree, photographed shortly before noon. 
f/6.3, 1/500, 150-500mm telephoto lens, 500mm, ISO 400, flash on

These flower whisperers do pollinate the blossoms they visit for nectar (although I have yet to see hummingbirds so into their flower nectar that their heads and bills are caked in pollen). Photographed in the evening of August 25.

the same fellow on the hybrid fruit tree. look at all that pink and orange!
f/6.3, 1/320, 150-500mm telephoto lens, 500mm, ISO 5000

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