The Costa Hummer 
pressed my red nose against the dainty beak, quite unrebuked. 
The Costa Hummer is not so well known as its congener, Calypte 
anna. This for three reasons, easily defined. In the first place, the 
Taken in Riverside County Photo by the Author 
COSTA HUMMER IN YERBA SANTA 
birds are not residents, as the Annas are. Though it has been detected 
in winter at favored stations on the Colorado Desert, the bulk of the 
species retires to Mexico and Lower California to winter, and does not 
return till late March or April. The range also is much less extensive than 
that of Anna, or indeed of any other of our California species; and any 
occurrence north of the Tehachipe or Santa Barbara County is counted 
noteworthy. Finally, Costa’s Hummer is a bird of the deserts and the 
friendly chaparral. More definitive still is the bird’s attachment to the 
white sage (Salvia apiana Jepson or Ramona polystachya (Benth.) 
Greene), for not only does the hummer share the aromatic nectar of this 
plant with the bees, but it uses the leafy bracts to adorn its modest 
nest, or to subdue it to a harmonizing grayness. 
Desert washes, therefore, and sunny sage-clad hillsides have first 
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