Anna’s Hummingbird at Ampitheater Point
As you rise out of the San Joaquin Valley and into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada at the south end of Sequoia National Park, you pass through the Ash Mountain entrance at 1,722 feet and climb another 2,478 feet to an outlook called Ampitheater Point, with views of Moro Rock (6,725 feet) hovering above you, along with vistas of the high peaks of the Great Western Divide to the east.
One afternoon in early April, I drove up through the redbud-covered foothills to Ampitheater Point, stopping along the way to watch one of the park’s resident black bears foraging peacefully by the side of the road. As soon as I arrived at Ampitheater Point, a shiny red object drew my attention, and on further inspection, I saw that this was the fiery crown and gorget of a male Anna’s Hummingbird, which was perched at the end of a bare limb of a shrub on the side of the vista point.
Indeed, this hummingbird had the best seat in the house, looking out in one direction at the broad expanse of mountain valleys, and then back at the curious humans who had stopped their cars for a moment to take in the view. I hurried to my car and retrieved my digital camera, a Canon EOS Digital Rebel 300D with a Tamron AF 200-400mm f/5.6 lens, and I took about fifteen shots of this hummingbird before it flew off. (I finally obeyed by own rule of getting something recorded first, before you lose the opportunity!)
In this case, however, I needn’t have worried, as that hummingbird flew back to his favorite perch again and again for the better part of an hour. So I flipped my Tamron 2x teleconverter onto my camera, and I took another 35 shots of this hummingbird in various poses—with and without the crown and gorget showing, and one shot when he stretched out his tail feathers, uppertail coverts, and primaries.
I could have watched that hummingbird for a few more hours, but I wanted to get to the top of Moro Rock before the end of the afternoon, when I knew the temperature would plunge. Looking down at the hummingbird’s perch from the summit of Moro Rock, I marveled at the scale of my surroundings, and I contemplated the tiny size of the hummingbird amid all of this glaciated expanse.
What was this hummingbird doing all alone, up at 4,200 feet in the Sierras in early April? Well, after breeding as early as December at lower elevations, he was no doubt following spring up the hill in a post-breeding dispersal. After nectaring on the redbud further below, he had reached the manzanita zone, and he was certainly nectaring on these drooping, winter-blooming, white or pink flowers that have specially evolved for pollination by hummingbirds.
As spring progressed, he would find himself higher and higher in the mountains, and when summer was at its height, this hummingbird would probably be hanging out in meadows by the names of Crescent, Round, Long, and Circle—deep in the heart of the Giant Forest. Of course, the wildflowers would be in full bloom in these meadows at that time—and for dessert, the hummingbird could always glean some sap or insects from a spot where a Red-breasted Sapsucker had punctured the bark of an oak tree.
Nice work—if you can get it!
