Calypte Anna

I'll finish today's posting with a couple of photographs of one of my favorite Californian species - anna's hummingbird. They're delightfully colourful and incredibly hardy. In particular, I love the way that a male bird can transform from an aparant "black-throated" bird to a vibrant red-pink iridescent throated bird with the turn of it's head - amazing!

These two birds were photographed near Crissy Fields on 9th January 2009 and were very vocal as they dashed around their business.

Two Sparrows

Golden-crowned sparrow was a new species for me on this trip, and prove to be fairly numerous on our walk to Crissy Fields, with others seen in Golden Gate Park. I like the yellow on it's forecrown, a nice tough on what is relatively a dull coloured bird! This species was often in mixed flocks of white-crowned and song sparrow.

The song sparrow was photographed at Crissy Fields - I've a bit of a soft spot for photographs of birds on rusty wire fences (see below, yellow-rumped warbler...), very "rustic"?... maybe not!