Anna’s Hummingbird

While Erika and I watched the Western Tanager reported in my last post, we witnessed odd behavior by an Anna’s Hummingbird. The bird made repeated passes at the Western Tanager, usually flushing it from the tanager’s perch. Anna’s Hummingbirds are very aggressive. When these hummingbirds display, they often plummet towards a female. Occasionally the males dive towards other birds perched in their territories (or even towards humans). Ornithologists are not sure why the hummers dive at other species. Some males will dive at nearly any bird. Other males are more selective, diving only toward female Ann’s Hummingbirds. Discrimination may come with age or individual levels of aggressiveness (Clark and Russell 2020). We witnessed this behavior on 18 May 2020 at a forest opening along a logging road in Kennedy Flats in Mason County west of Olympia.