You've got a lovely photo of the male. Love the throat feathers. I've got Rufus hummingbirds here right now too. I think they tend to bully the Anna's but I have enough feeders out in different corners of the yard that everybody should have "space" - BUT - they tend to fight and buzz and cheep at each other anyway.
Hi. No pics but a little Birdy story - a very clever Robin. I was surprised to see this happening - perhaps others have seen it. I have mentioned at our first property we had a small river flowing past a fields width away - further along a bigger river joined it and where they met three corners were formed making a biggish area of water. Sometimes they flooded which brought water levels up to bank top and the two meeting currents formed a nice calm area of water to one side which the fish loved to get into - be about 4 feet deep. I was fishing this calm area (left corner) and on the right corner a Robin appeared on a fencepost and sat there. The river was running high and quite fast but that bird from time to time swooped down to the water and plucked something from the surface - once quite a sized piece of bread - then back to the post to eat it. Cannot now remember if it used its beak or feet to pick up but think beak - either way it was very skilfully done and a pleasure to watch. I never cease to be amazed at Ma Nature and her wonderful family - we must help them all we can. This is just for interest.
I occasionally wander along the river on Thursdays while my wife does the weekly shop. I am just longing to see a Kingfisher but so far, no luck. The only bird of interest today was a female Mallard with just a solitary duckling. I only had a short lens on camera, so a big crop and poor quality. The river was looking pretty which made up for the lack of subjects.
I find the dipper rather hard to get a decent picture of, always diving when you do find one. Managed a few shots of one today and thought it might be good to share it with you.
Collared doves are at risk in my backyard. These were a few years ago and about a year apart but this hawk plucked and partially dismembered the dove before flying off with the remains of the carcass.
We have sparrow hawks that do exactly the same here. A bit gruesome to watch but they have to eat too and at least they kill quickly.
