Anna's Hummingbird Sounds

Overview
ID info
Life History
Maps
Sounds

Song
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Arizona, March 13, 2010Recorded by Bob McGuire | Macaulay Library
Display
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California, March 11, 2012Recorded by Paul Marvin | Macaulay Library
Calls
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California, June 01, 2001Recorded by Terri Gallion | Macaulay Library
Calls
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California, June 01, 2001Recorded by Terri Gallion | Macaulay Library

Sounds provided by Macaulay Library.
Listen to more sounds of this species from the ML archive.

Songs

Anna’s Hummingbirds have a distinctive song that is long for a hummingbird (10 seconds or more). It's a series of buzzes, then a clearer, more tuneful whistle, followed by more emphatic chip notes; then the bird may repeat the whole set of buzz-whistle-chip sounds. It may not sound like it could be coming from a hummingbird, but once you learn to recognize it this can be a very good way to locate singing males.

Calls

Calls are a series of short, sharp chip notes that may be given one at a time or one after another to make a twittering sound.

Other Sounds

Displaying males make a loud squeak at the bottom of the courtship dive. For years this was thought to be another kind of chip note, but recent experiments and analysis of high-speed video show it comes from wind passing over the hummingbird's modified outer tail feathers.