These guys were very common around the lodge because they love these purple flowers that were planted everywhere.

In a certain light, the woodnymph’s throat is bright green.  It’s such a flash of color!

If you have trouble identifying the woodnymph because you can’t see his colors, note that they have forked tails.

As if this winter weren’t awesome enough with the trip to Costa Rica, I get to fly to San Francisco on business next week for a Monday meeting, which means I get to use Sunday to take pictures of birds in Golden Gate Park.  (Don’t worry about the birds, Jon will stay with them and they won’t think they we might leave them for good).  Even better, there’s a place in San Francisco where I can rent a 500mm Nikon lens.  The lens is used to take phenomenal pictures.  The drawback being that the lens is very expensive to buy new and twice as heavy (8.5 lbs) as my already heave 150-500mm Sigma lens (4.2) so I want to test one out before taking the plunge.  Get ready for crystal clear pictures!

I didn’t show you all my hummingbird pictures from Arizona.  I wanted to save a couple.  The Calliope Hummingbird is the smallest of all hummingbirds.  The males have streaky pink feathers under their chins.

Depending on the angle of the sun, the streaks are more or less obvious.  This are the same two birds on the left in different light.

The females look like female Rufous Hummingbirds, but with more rufous color on their tail feathers.  I am not even close to being skilled enough to take a guess at which females were Calliopes.  But hey, there might be one in this picture because there are so many hummingbirds!

That must have been some good syrup!

I like how he can raise the feathers on his head.  I didn’t see any other hummingbirds doing this.  We were able to see the hummingbird at Beatty’s Guest Ranch in Miller’s Canyon.  They have a very nice setup with a bunch of feeders and bleachers where you can take pictures.  Here’s a picture with flat feathers on top.

In direct light the Magnificent Hummingbird has a blue gorget (throat feathers).  Here’s a hint.

And here’s even more.

And finally, the whole throat.

photo by Jon

I wish I could show you pictures of the female Magnificent but I didn’t see one.  She’s the most distinctive female hummingbird that I’ve seen – her head is black with a white stripe.

When these guys hit the light they are spectacular.

I haven’t seen one since my early days of birding in California.  And that bird might have actually been an Allen’s Hummingbird – they look so similar.  But this is without question a Rufous Hummingbird.  Here’s the back:

The female is much more subdued.  She has a little bit of yellow pollen on the top of her beak.

While many female hummingbirds have rufous coloring beneath their wings, the Rufous Hummingbird has a much darker color and white next to their eyes.  Below is an example of the strong rufous coloring.

And this is a good example of the white next to her eyes:

I really like the tiny spots underneath her chin.  They’re so delicate.

Rufous Hummingbirds are known for being very feisty.  I didn’t see that as much as I noticed how fast they were.  They would come up to the feeder, drink and leave.  I have hundreds more pictures of the Broad-billed Hummingbird because they are larger and not as concerned with getting food.  Next week I’ll post pictures of the Magnificent Hummingbird, which really lives up to it’s name.

The Black-chinned Hummingbird is on the right in the above picture.  In most shots his chin looks black but in direct sunlight his chin is purple.  Here’s a hint:

Except for the chin, his colors are actually pretty muted.

His chest is really white.

The female is even more muted, she doesn’t even have large spots on her chin.

In the picture below, the bird in the background is a female Rufous Hummingbird and the one in the foreground is a female Broad-billed Hummingbird.  Compared to the female Black-chinned Hummingbird, their feathers glow!

Next week, the Ruffous Hummingbird!

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I saw eight different kinds of hummingbirds and over fifty new bird species!  Jon and I took tons of photos so you’ll be seeing a lot of photos from Patagonia.  First I’d like to start with the Broad-billed Hummingbird because he’s so beautiful.

Here’s an action shot:

photo by Jon

These birds are very easy to identify.  First there is the orange beak.  Next there are the blue and green feathers.  Lastly, the tail is forked.

I have hundreds of pictures of this guy.  He’s so bright!

Here is a picture where he’s competing with the bees for sugar water.

These birds stay in Arizona from March to September.  They’ve been known to travel as far north as Ontario.

The females are dull in comparison, but they still have an orange beak.

She has glints of blue and green in her feathers.  The white eyebrow is also helpful for identification because female hummingbirds are all green colored so any way to differentiate helps.

photo by Jon

Here they are together.

This is a relaxed fluffy hummingbird.  They’re so used to people coming to take pictures that you can get within a few feet of the hummingbirds.

They take drinks of water and then sit in the trees for a few minutes.  This happens all day.  They eventually consume one and a half to two times their body weight.  That’s a lot of drinking!

This was a great trip.  And I want to publicly thank my husband who didn’t complain once about getting up between 5:30 and 7:00 each day to go birding.  These days usually lasted until 5:00 p.m., mind you.

I’m not 100% positive because hummingbirds are so hard!  Unless they’re like the guy below from Golden Gate Park, you have to add up identifiers.

When you can see the pink flashes, it’s clear that you’re dealing with an Anna’s Hummingbird.  So I want to say that the one below is a female Calliope Hummingbird, but that type of hummingbird is rare in Utah.  However!  They are found here during the summer and during migration.  I took the photo on September 5, so I might be right.  My belief is based on the brown underparts and the face having a white background with spots.  Anna’s seem to have green underparts and a grey face.  [Update! My friends are saying Rufous hummingbird, which is a common migrant for Utah.]

Also, I think the back is a less shiny green back.

What do you think?

I still don’t want to live in California but it’s nice to visit in the winter!  The park was exploding in spring.

With all these flowers blossoming, you can imagine how many birds were around.

I saw more birds in one afternoon in California than I’ve seen the whole time in Utah.  Of course this will change when spring comes, but for now I’ll think of Golden Gate Park.

I saw tons of birds and I’ll be discussing some new ones, but for today I want to mention an old favorite: the Anna’s Hummingbird.  Anna’s Hummingbirds stay in California during the winter.  When you walk around the Bay Area, the tops of trees frequently look like this:

I love how in some lights the hummingbirds have black heads and in some lights you can see the magenta colors.  Here, there is a little magenta along the edges.

Here’s full-blown magenta.

and a little on the sides

I’m also throwing in some other Anna’s Hummingbird pictures from California.  I love this background from the Fitzgerald Marine Preserve:

And here is a teeny tiny picture of an Anna’s Hummingbird at Crissy Field in San Francisco.

Utah must have hummingbirds because many people on our street have hummingbird feeders out.  Here’s hoping they come back soon.

These branches have moss growing on them.

This was taken at the Botanical Garden at Golden Gate Park.

I like the light on this tree.

In the same way that light changes the look of the plants, it has an even more dramatic effect on the hummingbirds. The following pictures are all the same bird.

So, you know how the feathers looked black in the above picture? It’s a trick of the light. Male Anna’s hummingbirds have a pink hood. You can see it below, apologies for the blurriness.

Here is an example of the ruby color, taken by an extremely skilled photographer.