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Anna's Hummingbird | Calypte anna
Anna's kolibrie | Colibrí cabeza roja
Anna's Hummingbird is a medium-sized, stocky hummingbird of the Pacific coast of North America. In the guide area it breeds only in north-western Baja California; in winter birds appear further east and south in northern Mexico. The male is the only hummingbird in the area with a metallic rose-red crown and throat, and one of the few that also sings in winter.
Voice
From a perch the male sings a dry, scratchy series of squeaky and buzzing notes, also outside the breeding season. The call is a hard, dry chik, speeded up in chases into a rattling twitter. In the display dive the male produces a loud, sharp squeak with its tail feathers at the lowest point.
Recording: Greg Irving — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, with a straight, fairly short black bill. The male is green above and grey with green mottling below; the crown, face and throat are metallic rose-red, with short projections at the sides of the throat, and look black in poor light. The female is green above and dingy grey below, with a greenish wash on the flanks and usually a small rose-red patch in the centre of the throat. The tail is rounded, with white tips to the outer feathers in the female. Young birds resemble the female.
Confusion species
Costa's Hummingbird Calypte costae is smaller and shorter-tailed; the male has a purple crown and a purple throat with long projections, and the female is paler and whiter below. Females of Black-chinned Hummingbird Archilochus alexandri and Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris are slimmer and whiter below, without a rose-red throat patch. Females of Selasphorus species show rufous on the flanks and at the base of the tail.
Habitat
Chaparral and coastal sage scrub, open oak woodland, riparian woodland, canyon scrub and above all gardens, parks and residential areas with flowering plants and feeders, from sea level to about 2000 m. In winter also in desert scrub and in gardens in dry regions. Besides nectar it catches many small insects in flight.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Resident in north-western Baja California, from the United States border south along the coast and in the Sierra de Juárez and Sierra San Pedro Mártir. In winter further south on the peninsula into Baja California Sur and east into Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and occasionally Nuevo León. Outside the guide area along the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada, from California to south-western British Columbia, and in the south-western United States.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In gardens and parks in and around Tijuana and Ensenada, where males sing year-round from a fixed perch above their territory. In winter in northern Sonora and Chihuahua at feeders and flowering shrubs in villages.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The world population is large and increasing. Over the past century the breeding range has expanded far to the north and east, helped by gardens with exotic flowering plants and feeders.
Scientific name
Calypte anna | (Lesson, 1829)
Lesson described the species in 1829 as Ornismya Anna; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Calypte was introduced in 1856 by Gould. Calypte comes from Greek kaluptē 'covered' or kaluptra 'veil', after the male's iridescent hood. anna honours Anna Debelle (1802–1887), Princess of Essling and Duchess of Rivoli, wife of the bird collector François Victor Masséna and later chief lady-in-waiting to Empress Eugénie. The specimen the first description was based on came from San Francisco, California.