Online Art Contest - Hummingbird flying toward sun

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Contest Rules

Hummingbird flying toward sun ADD HUMMINGBIRD WHO IS MAKING SO CALLED COURTSHIP display
1. Post your best three colorful photographs of hummingbirds courtship.
Rules
1. Three photographs per member
2. Colorful different hummingbirds please
3. Not digitally altered in any way
Hummingbirds communicate with one another by making visual displays. Males sometimes raise the feathers bordering the gorget and toss their heads from side to side, while uttering shrill sounds. Females and young are more likely to do perched displays in which they spread their tail feathers to show the white tips.

Sometimes both males and females do shuttle-flights, which are rapid back and forth movements in front of another bird. During the shuttle flight, the tail and gorget may be displayed.

Dive display are only done by the males. At key points in the dive, buzzing, whistling, or popping sounds might be made with the wing feathers or the vocal cords. The trajectory of the dive is U-shaped. At the top of the arc, the bird may be quite high in the air.

The narrowly-focused shuttle dance of the male is usually part of a courtship ritual. After finding a ready female, he flies in front of her in short, rapid arcs. The dance field may be about ten inches wide.

We once saw a black-chinned hummingbird shuttle like this in front of a female that was perched in a mesquite. Looking intimidated, she moved her head back and forth to watched his awesome arial movements, which were only inches from her face; then she hung upside-down by her toes as he mounted her.

In some hummingbirds--mostly species that are south of the border--the males gather in communities, which are called leks. Then they all sing together to try to entice females to come into the neighborhood for mating.