Anna's Hummingbird

Description:

Anna's Hummingbird is 3.9 to 4.3 inches (10 to 11 centimeters)long. It has a bronze-green back, a pale grey chest and belly, and green flanks. Its bill is long, straight and slender. The adult male has an iridescent crimson-red crown and throat, and a dark, slightly forked tail. Anna's is the only North American hummingbird species with a red crown. Females and juveniles have a green crown, a grey throat with some red markings, a grey chest and belly, and a dark, rounded tail with white tips on the outer feathers.

Habitat:

Open-wooded or shrubby areas and mountain meadows along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to Arizona make up C. anna's breeding habitat.

Notes:

The female raises the young without the assistance of the male. The female bird builds a large nest in a shrub or tree, or in vines or on wires. The round, 3.8-to-5.1-centimetre (1.5 to 2.0 in) diameter nest is built of very small twigs, lichen and other mosses, and often lined with downy feathers or animal hair. The nest materials are bound together with spider silk or other sticky materials. They are known to nest early as mid-December and as late as June. Unlike most hummingbirds, the male Anna's Hummingbird sings during courtship. The song is thin and squeaky. During the breeding season, males can be observed performing a remarkable display, called a display dive, on their territories. The males also use the dive display to drive away rivals or intruders of other species. When a female flies onto a male's territory, he rises up approximately 30 metres (98 ft) before diving over the recipient. As he approaches the bottom of the dive the males reach an average speed of 27 m/s, which is 385 body lengths per second. At the bottom of the dive the male travels 23 metres per second (51 mph), and produces a loud sound described by some as an "explosive squeak" with his outer tail-feathers