February: Allen's Hummingbird

Allen's Hummingbird
Originally uploaded by Bill Walker.

Presidio of San Francisco, California [taken March 2007]

Photographing wildlife in the park areas of The Presidio is a bit surreal -- surrounded by the busy city of San Francisco, the open landscape of The Presidio provides small oases for migrating birds, like this Allen's hummingbird, drinking from a spring in the park. On the weekday morning when I shot this male Allen's, Ashok Khosla and I had the park pretty much to ourselves, except for the occasional dog walker passing the spring where the hummingbirds had stopped to drink. Distinguishing this "orange rumped" Allen's from a "green-backed" Rufous hummingbird relies on other photos in the series, where we can see that his outer tail feathers are narrow and pin-like.