Fred Close Up; ps

Fred has been trying out new favorite perches. Here's a clip I shot today in rather wet conditions:

Shortly before this I filmed him perform a short mating dance for an invisible female, but it did not come out well. The sequence is at normal speed and so has a sound track, which is the waves on the beach 150 feet below.

And here he is on a variant of this perch a few days ago, in the sun, and not quite as close up. You can here some kids playing in the background, probably at the 4H camp.

PS: as I sat on the front deck at 8pm overlooking the very mournful Sound an adult male hummingbird came to the feeder nearest me. Within second an angry Fred arrived with an aggressive whirr and chased the intruder away. Fred cannot see this feeder from his favorite perches, but he spends most of his time away from these perches, checking out his feeders and lurking in on possible intruders (or potential mates). A few minutes later a female came to the flowers, and a few minutes later a male (probably Fred), visitng successively Salvia greggii, S. splendens (the variety "Lighthouse Red"),  Cuphea "David Verity" and finally ther same feeder. Then a bit after that I saw 2 hummers chasing at high speed, then a hummer (I think a female) visiting coral honeysuckle, which is still blooming. There's a lot of S. guaranitica flowering but so far few visits - the hummers have yet to learn that though blue it's good. Then anorther chase, even though the light is getting bad. I have the impression that activity is beginning to pick up after the june doldrums. The volunteers that come the week after next should be in for a treat.