Sitka Nature

I recently learned that someone I know has had an Anna’s Hummingbird visiting. It’s probably more accurate to say that his wife has had an Anna’s Hummingbird visiting, as she is the one who has maintained the feeder since late fall, when the bird apparently first showed up.

When I first talked to her to get information for inclusion in the quarterly rare bird report, she described the bird as being green and distinctly larger than the normal (Rufous) hummingbirds she sees during the summer. Based on her description and patterns of past vagrancy, it seemed quite likely that it was an Anna’s Hummingbird. Anna’s Hummingbirds are considered Very Rare in Sitka, so I would not generally expect them to be around. According to the Birds of North America account, their breeding range seems to extend no further than southern British Columbia. However, they are early breeders (December-May) and expand their range north through Coastal British Columbia and into Southeast Alaska. Presumably they would normally head back south in August, like the Alaskan breeding Rufous Hummingbirds, but I guess this one went the wrong way and ended up in Sitka.

Although the feeder maintainer said she was not comfortable having other people (particularly those she doesn’t know) visit to see the hummingbird, she did offer to let me stop by and try to get some photos to document the bird. I was finally able to stop by last Saturday morning to try for some pictures.

I sat and waited outside near the feeder for a few minutes before I heard strange calls that seemed vaguely reminiscent of Rufous Hummingbird calls I have heard in the spring and summer. I went over and looked down from the deck and saw a hummingbird perched in a branch below. It sat there for a few minutes before approaching the feeder. I turned to watch it and it immediately retreated. I felt a little bad about scaring the bird with my sudden movement, so I resolved to not move the next time it approached. I got in a position where I could see the feeder well and waited. A few minutes later it returned to feed. It took a couple of minutes feeding, then flew off again to perch on a branch not far from the deck. Over the hour and a half or so that I watched, about every 10-15 minutes the bird would take a couple of minutes to feed at the feeder before going back to the branches.

A couple of things struck me as intersting about this bird (beyond it’s mere presence at this time of year). First, It was quite vocal, regularly chattering between feedings. This seemed a little odd, but then I don’t know the typical behavior of this species. The other thing I did not notice until I looked at the pictures later. The bird never actually stuck its bill down into the feeder. For some reason that’s what I expected it to do, but instead it held its bill away from the feeder and extended its tongue to get its food.

I’m grateful to the homeowners who for making an exception for me and letting me stop by and document this unusual Sitka bird. In addition to being an unusual bird for the area, it had some extra interest to me personally as it is the 150th species of bird I have photographed in Sitka (assuming I managed to count things up correctly, anyway).

The series of entries that starts with this post was conceived after S. L. White, of Foothills Fancies, Romantic Naturalist, and other blogs, had some nice things to say about this site, with particular mention of the 1000 Species Project. Initially I was just going to leave a comment on the entry there, but I realized I had more than a comment’s-worth to say in response to some of the questions raised on the Romantic Naturalist about the nature of the naturalist endeavor.

To What Do I Aspire?
This summer I had the opportunity to go on a hike with Richard Carstensen (seen in the photo above). He has spent a lot of time in the woods throughout Southeast Alaska and it was very interesting to talk with him. One of the things that came up early in the conversation was his curiousity about how I would describe my interests, especially as they relate to natural history.

I have always tended to be a curious individual with diverse interests. Over the years many things have caught my attention for at least a little while. I gradually realized that there was far more in this world that was interesting than I would ever have time to learn and that if I really wanted to have some chance at a deep understanding of something, I would need to limit my investigations in some way. In the end, I decided that my limits would be geographical. Some people get really into beetles or birds or wildflowers or rocks or clouds, I want to get into this place. I do not want to learn about all the beetles or birds or plants or rocks or clouds, but I am driven to learn about the beetles and birds and plants and rocks and clouds that can teach me about this place and those who are my neighbors here.

This place is key. I have only a passing interest in things that live elsewhere, except inasmuch as they are fairly directly related to this place. It’s even worse though, the fact is, I have very little interest (to the point of it being an active disinterest) in even leaving this place for any length of time…

At some point in my ramblings I paused to catch my breath and he asked if the following statement fit my sense of things: “…a generalist in subject matter, but a specialist in place.”

This statement is as accurate is as any I had come up with to describe my aspiriations, and it’s certainly far more concise.