Hanging with hummers

Female rufous hummingbird

The crocosmia and tritoma (red hot poker or torch lily) are at their peak, so I tried to catch hummer drama starting early this morning. Two female rufous regularly face off below the kitchen window. But not today. I actually drank coffee and sat next to the window with my camera ready for more than an hour. Later I figured out that the hummers could see me at the window, so they stayed with the lower flowers out of my view. There is about an hour in the morning, when the light is bright but the sun hasn't yet hit the window. Then the glare makes it really difficult to get much that is worthwhile.

Female Anna's hummingbird

This evening, though, an adult female Anna's hung out for a few minutes. She was quite a character, sitting on a branch and poking a flower, then looking for another that wouldn't be so much effort.

I saw a young female Anna's earlier but didn't have my camera (I really do other things in the kitchen besides photographing hummers!) ready. A young male Anna's, perhaps they were nest mates, landed opposite her and they both shared the flowers on the same branch.

More tomorrow! In the meantime, check out my growing Hummer gallery.