Hummingbird guest

Another warm-ish February weekend and we had a lot of bird activity in the garden, as well as bees in the rosemary hedges, lemon tree and lavatera shrub.

In the late afternoon, before sunset, I observed this Anna's hummingbird hanging out at our nectar hummzinger. It settled in there, first to drink nectar. But then it just sat there, looking around. It was looking up for a while, probably watching out for other hummer competitors for the nectar.

Hummer resting

I saw another hummer fly above but it didn't even attempt to chase this one away.

And then a challenger arrived at the scene!

But our hummer just stared the challenger down.

After the competition flew away, our little hummer just stared a long time upward.

And still sat there, occasionally taking sips of nectar, but mostly looking upward. And finally, side to side, because you just can't be too sure!

And you're not imagining the change in light on these photos. This was happening at sunset, during a period of half an hour! Yes, it sat there for half an hour! That nectar must be really delicious!

What was very hilarious is that while this little hummer was hanging out at the feeder, I observed another hummer in our neighbor's backyard. It was constantly swooping down from a very high tree branch, diving almost vertically toward the ground and then high up into the air again back to the same branch. It was probably catching an evening meal of bugs.