Perpetually twitchy are the broad-tailed hummingbirds around my cabin. This alpha male took a break from chasing off other males and doing his circular dive dance to preen on a dead aspen branch. I hadn't realized how difficult preening is when you have a long beak- the neck needs to stretch a lot to attend to feathers near the head.

At this elevation (9500'/2900 m) the nights regularly drop below the threshold where these little birds can maintain a normal body temperature (too much metabolic demand) so they allow their temperatures to drop to near 50 ˚F/ 10 ˚C in a process called torpor. When the sun rises they crank up their internal heaters to bring the body temperature back to normal (106 ˚F/ 41˚C) so they can start flying again.

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Make:	SONY
Model:	ILCE-7M3
Exposure:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture:	f/6.3
ISO Speed:	800
Focal Length:	600 mm
Lens:	FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS