This beautiful close-up footage of a perched male Anna's hummingbird showing off its iridescent head and "gorget" was filmed by Vimeo user Don DesJardin in California.
When a perched male Hummingbird raises its head toward the sun at just the right angle, its throat glitters like a crimson spotlight. When it turns its head slightly, the bird’s throat no longer gleams. It appears colorless, dark.
A hummingbird’s brilliant throat feathers are called its “gorget” (pronounced gor-jit). The term comes from days of old, when a knight-in-armor wore a metallic collar or gorget to protect his throat. The hummingbird’s intense glint is the result of iridescence, rather than colored pigments. The bird’s throat feathers contain minutely thin, film-like layers of “platelets,” set like tiles in a mosaic against a darker background. Light waves reflect and refract off the mosaic, creating color in the manner of sun glinting off oily film on water.
Watch the video:https://vimeo.com/3331560
Info source:http://www.audubon.org/news/a-hummingbirds-shining-armor
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