Photo Study Of An Anna's Hummingbird In Shartlesville, PA(Berks County), November24th, 2010

Photo Study Of An Anna's Hummingbird In Shartlesville, PA (Berks County), November24th, 2010

    …or guess who finally showed up in Pennsylvania? An Anna's Hummingbird has been coming to Renee Gery's porch feeder for the past three to four weeks at the Mountain
    Springs Campground in Shartlesville, PA. Renee got Scott Weidensaul's phone number from Jack Holcomb and contacted Scott, who was then able to band this adult female     hummingbird last Sunday morning. The bird has been seen coming to the feeder on and off each day since. I arrived at Ms. Gery's home at 6:55 AM this morning and this
    beautiful, little, confirmed, 1st time ever in Pennsylvania, Anna's Hummingbird came to the feeder at 7:00AM and fed for about two minutes. It came in almost every thirty
    minutes until 9:30AM, first coming to a Crab Apple tree in Ms. Gery's yard and then to the feeder on her porch giving great looks and photo ops to the birders assembled.
    It then decided to play hide and seek with us for the next hour and a half. At 12:00PM, I became curious as to why the bird had stopped coming so I explored the area and
    discovered the hummer feeding at three other feeders. There were seven new feeders put up by neighbors and the hummingbird found them before we knew the feeders were
    even there. In any event, I left at 12:30PM after the bird perched at the top of one of Ms. Gery's trees for a few minutes before it flew off to one of the other feeders. If you do
    go to see the Anna's, I suggest you wander around checking all the feeders.

Here are a few of today's photos of the Anna's in a tree in front of M75:

And below are six photos of the Anna's in a tree in front of M69 taken five days later on November 29th...

And below are four more photos of the Anna's in a tree in front of M69 taken five days later on December 4th...

     It has been several weeks since anyone has reported seeing the Anna’s. However, today the homeowner of M69 reported that the Anna’s was still coming to the feeder at the
    back of her house. She had rigged a heat lamp in her window which keeps the sugar water liquid and with the Sewerage Treatment Plant across the road from the
    Campground, there are apparently plenty of insects still available to the hummer. In any event, we went today to verify that the bird was indeed the Scott Weidensaul banded
    Anna’s and we were not disappointed. The photo below shows her seemingly happy and healthy at the feeder.

Banded Anna’s Hummingbird On December 27^th, 2010

   The Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) is a medium-sized hummingbird (4 inches long with a 5 1/4 inch wingspan) native to the west coast of North America. Females and
   juveniles have a green crown, a gray throat, a gray chest and belly, and a dark, rounded tail with white tips on the outer feathers. These birds feed on nectar from flowers
   using a long extendable tongue. They also consume small insects caught in flight. Anna's Hummingbirds are found along the west coast from southern Canada to northern
   Baja California and inland to southern Arizona. Although most references say Anna's are permanent residents, there are actually major post-breeding movements - north
   in Canada and Alaska during the summer, and south and southeast into Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in winter. No one really knows what populations are moving.
   Also, birds have been spotted far outside their usual range in such places as Saskatchewan, New York, Florida, Louisiana and now, thanks to this bird, Pennsylvania.
   Anna's Hummingbirds are the only hummingbirds to spend the winter in northern climates; they are able to do this as there are enough winter flowers and food to support
   them. During very cold weather, Anna's Hummingbirds gradually gain weight during the day as they convert sugar to fat. In addition, hummingbirds with inadequate stores of
   of body fat or insufficient plumage are able to survive periods of sub-freezing weather by lowering their metabolic rate and entering a state of torpor.
   (Cornell BNA; Wikipedia; The Sibley Guide To Birds; Scott Weidensaul)

Scott Weidensaul posted the following response to an email about the Anna's ability to survive our cold winters:

"    Subject: Re: Anna's in the snow
           From: Scott Weidensaul <scottweidensaul AT VERIZON.NET>
           Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:48:19 -0400

   First, a sincere thanks to all the birders who have visited the Anna's site and behaved themselves with such distinction that some of the local residents have commented on how
   nice and polite the visitors have been. And particular thanks to those who have made a point to seek out campground/mobile home park owner Steve Fisher to thank him for
   being so accommodating.

Rick's email raises an interesting point - whether this hummer will attempt to over-winter in Shartlesville. We're used to rufous and Allen's hummingbirds that tend to stick
around until late November or early December, occasionally lingering into January before they head south to the Gulf, but rarely trying to overwinter.

   Anna's, however, are a different sort of hummingbird, and they frequently remain year-round as far north as Seattle and southern British Columbia, despite snow and
   below-freezing temperatures. Some even start to nest in late January in southwestern B.C. (Vancouver Island), though more wait until March. Which populations migrate
   and which ones are more sedentary isn't well known, but as I noted in an earlier post, the species has also shown an extraordinary ability to expand its range dramatically,
   both in breeding and non-breeding seasons.

   All this means that we shouldn't take for granted the idea that this hummer will leave with the arrival of seriously cold weather. If it's a coastal California bird, it may be
   prompted to migrate back next month to be on the breeding grounds in time for nesting in January, or if it's from the later-nesting populations, it may stay put through the
   winter, especially if there is a good source of insects like a sewage treatment plant, which rarely freezes over. They are very cold-hardy, and some hummingbird researchers,
   like Cam Finlay in B.C., think Anna's are even more reliant on winter-hardy insects than most western hummers, and thus less dependent on feeders.

Happy Thanksgiving to all,

Scott Weidensaul
Schuylkill Haven, PA"

For comparative purposes, here are a couple of my photos below of Anna's Hummingbirds taken in the Desert Botanical Garden of Phoenix, Arizona in 2008:

Male Anna's Hummingbird

Female Anna's And Young

To see a larger image of any of the photos below taken on November 24th at M75, please click on either the thumbnails or the captions...thanks!


A-Anna's	B-Anna's	C-Anna's	D-Anna's	E-Anna's

F-Anna's	G-Anna's	H-Anna's	I-Anna's	J-Anna's
ec
K-Anna's	L-Anna's	M-Anna's

Revised December 27th, 2010