Stunning!

thanks, folks. in cat's photo, I can see how that little spot on its throat is the beginning of that full ruby gorget. cool. there is another one hanging around, too, smaller with a clean grey throat. just this morning I was thinking its beak looked huge, catwhiskas. these 2 chase each other and play and wait for each other to feed. I'll try to get some more pics of them. I actually saw one of them on the hummzinger saucer feeder today. that was a 'first' this year.

I'm going to throw my vote for juvie MALE Annas. These look like they have a few colored feathers, a forerunner of gorgets, on the throat. I don't think the females show that spot of color. Frank....where are you? We need your expertise! Sweet pics, Dave. Patrick

I wonder if these guys are my female's children??? :-p What is also cool that I forgot to mention is that when I got home, I took down, cleaned, and refilled the feeder. And when I went back out to hang it, there was a hummer hovering in the empty spot where the feeder had been hanging, pecking at the home-made ant moat (which I had made from a red plastic Maxwell House coffee jar lid)! LOL It was like "Hey!!!! What happened here? Where's my FOOD???!!!" As I approached, it backed up to let me reconnect the feeder and flew to the side while I straightened it. Then it finally returned about a minute later. Also last evening was the very first time that I heard my hummers chirp! Wow!!!!! All summer has been silence... Not even any sound from the wings. Now I was hearing all sorts of racket... not too dissimilar from sparrow chirps but shorter and more abrupt in duration. One other interesting observation is that for all the years that I have lived here, I always had spider webs - many quite large and intricate, with huge spirals attached from the balcony ceiling to the balcony rail or to the tops of my overhanging shrubs along the rail (a distance ranging from about 3ft - 4ft in diameter). But for the first time ever, not this year... Not a spider web to be seen. And of course I know why! ;-). Here's another pic from last evening... looking for an "incoming"! LOL