WEIT regular Bruce Lyon sent Jerry fantastic photographs of some young harriers that we have visited before here and here in June when the parents were nesting.

As always, click through on a photograph twice to see it in its original size.

Bruce writes:

Stephen Barnard sends us some photos from Idaho: stills of the aerial dogfights (or ballets) he sees daily between two species of hummingbirds battling around the feeder on his porch. You should know by now that these little guys, while adorable, are fiercely territorial. I’m not sure what damage they can do to each other while defending a feeder: perhaps those sharp bills can poke out an eye! His notes:

The Rufous (Selasphorus rufus) and Black-chinned (Archilochus alexandri) have been fighting over the feeder. So far it’s a standoff. The Rufous are pugnacious but the Black-chinned are persistent and by no means shrinking violets. They go at this all day long, with at least hundreds
of other aggressive encounters.

(Don’t forget, you can see the photo at its original size if you click through on it twice.)

In an email, Stephen asked me if I knew of any other vertebrate that had antagonistic encounters with members of other vertebrate species on such a constant basis. I responded that hummingbirds probably didn’t attack each other like this except around a huge, defensible resource like a nectar feeder—something that doesn’t occur in nature (though big masses of flowers do); and if that’s the case, then perhaps lions defending the remains of their kill from hyenas or wild d*gs would compare. But, as Stephen pointed out, the d*gs and hyenas never win.

Thanks to the talents of WEIT’s readers, we have some especially nice photos today. Tim Anderson, who is adept in taking photographs of the cosmos, sent this in with the comment:

Here is a photograph of a small section of the Milky Way showing the stars and clouds of dust and gas that inhabit the disk of the galaxy.

And WEIT Regular Stephen Barnard sent Jerry two more hummingbird photographs.

Black-chinned hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri).

JAC: I’ve seen a fair few of these in New Mexico and Arizona. They’re denizens of the western US and Mexico.You can hear their call here: Audio Recording.

Rufous hummingbird. (Selasphorus rufus). You can see me and the room I’m shooting from reflected in the eye.

[Grania] I think the eye looks like a jewel. This is their range. If you click through on the map link, there is an audio sample you can listen to as well of this hummingbird’s call.