A very special hummingbird
I will be posting more about this amazing hummingbird. His name is Fabio (and he deserves it!) This is the seventh winter that I’ve had Anna’s hummingbirds coming to my home here on Vancouver Island, Canada. Unlike the rufous hummingbirds, who used to be our “regulars,” Anna’s hummingbirds stay all winter. I have had several…
Why are Anna’s hummingbirds moving north to Canada?
Why are Anna’s hummingbirds are expanding their range traditional territory in and around California northward to Canada and even Alaska? Well, the photo above reveals at least part of the answer: because gardeners like me enjoy having flowers blooming year-round. With our relatively mild winters here in coastal British Columbia, that is actually possible! That…
Baby it’s cold outside… first snow!
This is perhaps the most intriguing thing to me: how these tiny Anna’s hummingbirds, adapted for the tropics, and with essentially no body mass, survive our cold Canadian winters! We don’t get snow every winter here (in Port Alberni, central Vancouver Island). We have, though, seen a few days of snow pretty regularly these past…
Hummingbird range expansion: Successful nesting
Part of the reason that Anna’s hummingbirds have been so successful at expanding their range (from northern Mexico and Southern California, now all the way up to British Columbia, Canada, and Alaska) is because they are very good at raising babies. These hummingbirds have been known to start up to five nests per year. I…
And here are the boys…
For the first two years that Anna’s hummingbirds were visiting my home, all of the birds coming to my feeders were females. The population grew each year, and by the third summer one of that spring’s hatchlings took up residence on my front balcony, perched in the shrubbery. Juvenile males and females look nearly the…
Snowbirds 