Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) is a medium-sized, stocky songbird native to the Pacific Coast of North America. Unlike most North American hummingbirds that migrate thousands of miles to tropical climates for the winter, Anna’s Hummingbirds are tough, year-round residents. Over the past century, their range has expanded dramatically northward and eastward. Today, they are a dominant, highly vocal fixture in suburban yards, coastal scrublands, and urban parks from Alaska down to Baja California.
Anna’s Hummingbird Quick Facts
| Common Name | Anna’s Hummingbird |
| Scientific Name | Calypte anna |
| Size & Length | 3.9 to 4.3 inches |
| Wingspan | 4.7 to 5.1 inches |
| Weight | 0.1—0.2 ounces |
| US Range | Pacific Coast states (CA, OR, WA), Arizona, local in NM, NV, and southern AK |
| Migration | Non-migratory (Year-round resident with seasonal altitudinal movements) |
| Conservation Status | Stable / Population increasing significantly |
How to Identify Anna’s Hummingbirds
Anna’s Hummingbirds are relatively large and robust compared to other North American hummingbird species. They possess a straight, medium-length black bill and a distinctly chunkier, round-bellied silhouette.
Plumage and Iridescence
- Adult Males: Covered in a metallic bronze-green back and flanks, with a dull gray chest. Their defining feature is an expansive, iridescent fuchsia-pink to rose-red helmet that covers both the throat patch (gorget) and the entire crown (top of the head). In poor or indirect lighting, this brilliant helmet can appear velvet-black.
- Adult Females: Display a metallic green back and a clean, light gray breast. Their throat typically features a centralized cluster of iridescent rose-pink spots that can form a small, partial gorget. The corners of their rounded tail feathers are tipped in clean white.
- Juveniles: Closely resemble adult females, lacking the extensive iridescent helmet of the mature male.
Anna’s vs. Costa’s Hummingbird: In southern California and Arizona, do not confuse the male Anna’s Hummingbird with the Costa’s Hummingbird (Calypte costae). The Costa’s has a shorter tail and sports a deep violet-purple gorget that flares out dramatically on the sides like a long mustache, whereas the Anna’s fuchsia coloration covers the top of the head completely.
Habitat and Range Expansion
Historically restricted almost entirely to chaparral and coastal scrub ecosystems in southern California and northern Baja, Anna’s Hummingbirds have undergone one of the most successful range expansions of any native bird.
Today, their stable year-round range extends continuously up through Oregon and Washington into southwestern British Columbia, with a growing breeding footprint in southern Arizona and nomadic wanderers reaching coastal Alaska.
This expansion is directly tied to human landscaping trends:
- The widespread installation of backyard hummingbird feeders providing reliable winter sugar water.
- The heavy planting of non-native, winter-blooming exotic flowers (such as eucalyptus and fuchsias) in urban developments, which guarantees a year-round nectar supply.
Diet and Winter Survival Mechanics
Like all hummingbirds, Anna’s Hummingbirds balance their diet between carbohydrate-dense flower nectar and protein-rich insects. They feed on flying gnats, midges, fruit flies, and spiders, plucking them directly from the air or out of spiderwebs.
Defying the Winter Cold
Because they remain in northern latitudes like Seattle and Vancouver throughout the winter, Anna’s Hummingbirds have evolved remarkable survival strategies to handle freezing temperatures:
- Torpor: On freezing winter nights, they enter a deep state of temporary hibernation known as torpor. They lower their internal body temperature from 104°F down to 48°F, slowing their heart rate from over 1,000 beats per minute down to just 40. This cuts their metabolic energy consumption by up to 90%.
- Sap Sucking: In early spring before flowers bloom, Anna’s Hummingbirds systematically follow Red-breasted Sapsuckers. When the sapsuckers drill neat rows of holes into tree bark, the hummingbirds swoop in to drink the flowing sugary tree sap and eat the tiny insects trapped in the sticky residue.
How to Attract Anna’s Hummingbirds to Your Yard
Because they are year-round residents, establishing a reliable feeding and habitat system will keep the same individual Anna’s Hummingbirds nesting and foraging on your property for years.
1. Maintain Winter-Safe Nectar Feeders
- The Proportions: Boil 4 cups of water and mix in 1 cup of plain white granulated sugar. Never use honey, brown sugar, or red dye.
- Preventing Freezing: If temperatures drop below 32°F, sugar water will freeze. Prevent this by wrapping your feeder in holiday string lights, attaching a commercial feeder heater, or bringing the feeder indoors at dusk and rehanging it at dawn when the birds emerge from torpor hungry.
2. Plant Native West Coast Flora
Incorporate native shrubs and perennials that flower sequentially to guarantee a year-round natural nectar loop:
- Fuchsia-flowered Gooseberry (Ribes speciosum) – Crucial for winter blooms.
- Hummingbird Sage (Salvia spathacea) – Ideal for spring and summer nectar.
- California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum) – Provides vital autumn food before winter sets in.
3. Supply Nesting Spider Webs
Female Anna’s Hummingbirds build tiny, elastic cup nests about the size of a walnut shell. They construct them out of plant down, moss, and lichens, binding everything together with sticky spider silk. Leaving natural spider webs in place around your porch eaves or garden fencing gives nesting females the raw engineering materials they need to anchor their nests to branches.
Vocalizations and Extreme Courtship Dives
Unlike most hummingbirds, which are relatively quiet, male Anna’s Hummingbirds are highly vocal. Throughout the year, males will sit on exposed, high twigs and belt out a loud, scratchy, metallic, continuous song that sounds like a series of buzzes, squeaks, and dry chips: “zeek-chika-zeek-zeek.”
The 80 MPH Physics Dive
During the spring breeding cycle, males perform one of the most dramatic courtship displays in the animal kingdom:
- The male flies vertically up into the air, climbing to heights of 130 feet directly above a perched female.
- He turns face down, closes his wings, and executes a near-vertical ballistic dive toward the ground.
- At the absolute bottom of the dive, he reaches speeds exceeding 80 feet per second (roughly 55 to 60 miles per hour), pulling nearly 10 Gs of centripetal force as he curves back upward.
- The Tail-Feather Pop: As he bottoms out the dive, he spreads his outer tail feathers for a fraction of a second. The rushing wind pressure forces the specialized feather vanes to vibrate, emitting a loud, explosive, gunshot-like “pop” sound meant to demonstrate his physical fitness to the watching female.