Clark and Russell (2020) write that male Anna’s Hummingbirds “turn their heads from side to side as they sing, flashing the brilliant iridescence as a signal to other hummingbirds.” Erika and I suspect this male, which we happened upon along Olympia’s Capitol Lake on 17 January 2022, was defending his territory. Notice the aggressively raised head feathers in the first image. The bird, at one point flying up to a more exposed perch, refused to yield his space to us. All the while, he flashed his iridescence at us. We did not hear any song, nor did we see any other hummingbirds in the vicinity.


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