If I didn't know any better I would think my little hummingbird sentinel was trumpeting my arrival as it does pretty much every morning perched high atop its post on the agava shoot, but I know the sweetwater feeder I keep out pretty much year round is also just in sight.




The bougainvillea that shelters my porch is where one feeder is located and is a regular hangout for my Anna's hummingbird. I watch as it leisurely just hangs out in the shadows preening, scratching its head with its feet from the backside of its wing and then just perches motionless while then at the blink of an eye at supersonic speed in attack mode chases off another hummingbird intruder sneaking a lick of the precious sweetwater. If the intruder happens to be the occasional visiting red house finch hanging from the feeder’s glass tube for a lick, then my Anna’s just ignores it.




I stepped out on the porch while the hummingbird was hovering at the hanging glass feeder cautiously keeping an eye on me. Standing motionless from a yard away I watched the hummingbird while it fed this time paying particularly close attention to the sound of its beating wings, like a tiny pulsing aquarium pump that lowered in pitch while its tongue was sipping on the sweetwater nectar and rose in pitch while hovering slightly back off from the glass teat while staring back at me.




The hummingbirds look dull in the shade of the bougainvillea but when this little flying gladiator hit the light at just the right angle its ruby throat ignited in a blaze of iridescent splendor before zipping off into the blue sky like a fourth of July firework.