Colorful Las Vegas visitors

My weekend was spent peering out the back door. That's where the hummingbird feeder is. Now, I was surprised back in January when the hummingbirds started coming back to Las Vegas. Silly things should have stayed in Mexico! However, I got used to the black-chinned hummingbirds pretty quickly. I'd seen them all last summer, so it was nice that they remembered me and came back.

But now there are newcomers. I came home a little bit earlier than usual one afternoon last week and got a good look at something that was decidedly not a black-chinned hummingbird. This male had color all over its head, not just a little dark purple band under his chin. My impression was that his whole head was bright rose. An Anna's hummingbird, perhaps? Well, I still don't know! I spent the weekend standing at the patio door with a camera on a tripod, trying to get a picture of that colorful male. I never saw him again. In fact, I never saw a male black-chinned hummingbird this weekend. The girls have run off the boys!

Well, no, that's not exactly true. I haven't seen the boys at the feeder, but I had the thrill of watching a male hummingbird display in my very own backyard! Yes, a male flasher on my patio! A female was perched in the bush just behind my patio, and I saw a streak plummet down in front of her, swoop in a sharp arc at the bottom of his dive, and zip straight back up. At the same time, I heard a loud "Chrip!" at the bottom of the arc, followed by several "chip, chip, chip, chip" squeaks as he climbed back toward the sky. I was sitting on the patio, so I couldn't see how high he went, but a few seconds later he repeated the performance. Wow! I don't know about his girl perched in the bush, but I know I was quite impressed with his avian studliness.

The two pictures at the top of this post were taken on Saturday. I don't know what type of female hummingbird this is -- all the females are green and white. I do like these pictures, though. The close-up of her head even shows pollen on her beak, and you can see her little tongue sticking out at the end of her beak as if she's saying "Nyeah! I dare you to figure out what kind of hummingbird I am!"

On Sunday I saw another female at the feeder, but this girl was different. She had dark feathers under her chin. Logic would say this must be a black-chinned hummingbird, but I don't think those females have black chins. Do Costa's females have dark chins? I need a hummingbird expert to tell me what I've got here! To be honest, though, I don't really care. I'm just glad they're here! I hope they stay all summer.

Oh, and a weather report -- spring is almost here!