Hummingbird Showing Tongue 1

by Linda Brody

Title

Hummingbird Showing Tongue 1

Artist

Linda Brody

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Hummingbird Sticking out its tongue, while showing off it's gorgeous reddish orange/brown coloring. Note the half-closed, squinting eye. This Allen's Hummingbird is balancing on the end of a wintering berry bush branch. Deep saturated colors show as this was taken on a cloudy day.

Allen's hummingbird (Selasphorus sasin) is a species of hummingbird. It is a small bird, with mature adults reaching only 3 to 3.5 inches in length. The male has a green back and forehead, with rust-colored rufous flanks, rump, and tail. The male's throat is also an iridescent orange-red.

The female and immature Allen's hummingbirds are similarly colored, but lack the iridescent throat patch, instead having a series of speckles on their throats. Females are mostly green, featuring rufous color only on the tail, which also has white tips.

Immature Allen's hummingbirds are so similar to the female Rufous hummingbird, the two are almost indistinguishable in the field. Both species' breeding seasons and ranges are common factors used to differentiate between the two species in a particular geographical area.

Allen's hummingbird is common only in the brushy woods, gardens, and meadows of coastal California from Santa Barbara north, and a minuscule portion of southern Oregon. The nominate race of Allen's hummingbird, (S. s. sasin), is migratory, and winters along the Pacific coast of central Mexico. A second, (S. s. sedentarius), is a permanent resident on the Channel Islands off southern California. This population colonized the Palos Verdes Peninsula of Los Angeles County in the 1960s and has since spread over much of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, south through San Diego County, and east to the western end of Riverside County (inland empire).

The courtship flight of male Allen's hummingbirds is a frantic back-and-forth flight arc of about 25 feet similar to the motion of a swinging pendulum, followed by a high-speed dive from about 100 feet. The male is also highly aggressive and territorial. Hot-tempered despite its diminutive stature, male Allen's hummingbirds will chase any other males from their territory, as well as any other hummingbird species, and have even been known to attack and rout predatory birds several times larger than themselves, such as kestrels and hawks.

This photograph has been featured in the following Groups:
The Hummingbird Whisperer
Poetic Poultry
A Birding Group - Wings
Wild Birds of the World
FAA Bird Portraits
The Road to Self Promotion
Wisconsin Flowers and Scenery
Your Very Best Photograph
Southern California Artists Collective
Nature Landmarks Landscapes and Wildlife

Some of my artwork appears on products sold at Zazzle. Check out the following websites for that: Check out: http://www.zazzle.com/linda116.

If you like my art, please take a moment to "like" and/or comment. I would be most appreciative if you would share on Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, etc. This will help promote my art online and enable it to be found by others on internet searches. Thank you so much.

hummingbird, feeding, annas, rufous, macro, hummingbird macro, wings, blue background, balancing act, hummingbird feeding

Uploaded

September 22nd, 2016

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