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Birder captures beautiful video of Anna's hummingbird

SCREENGRAB It wasn't easy but the results are worth it. Squamish birder Chris Dale was able to capture the stunning beauty of a visiting Anna's hummingbird on video. "I had to stand in one spot for about 1.

 SCREENGRABSCREENGRAB

It wasn't easy but the results are worth it.

Squamish birder Chris Dale was able to capture the stunning beauty of a visiting Anna's hummingbird on video.

"I had to stand in one spot for about 1.5 hours to get this short video because the bird would only come back to this perch every 20 minutes or so and sometimes would only stay for a few second then fly away," he writes on his Mar. 19 YouTube post.

"When I started it was sunny and warm but by the time I finally got this one scene the wind had come up and the clouds came in and I could hardly move my hands they were so cold from one resting at the ready on the record button of the camera and the other one on the digital recorder button."

Last year, Vancouverites chose the colourful hummingbird as the city's official bird. It beat out the Northern flicker, varied thrush and spotted towhee.

The Canadian Wildlife Federation says there are five species of hummingbird found in Canada. The ruby-throated hummingbird is the most widespread, found from Alberta east to Nova Scotia. The calliope hummingbird is the tiniest of the five, and is found in central interior British Columbia and southwestern Alberta. Anna’s hummingbird can be found in parts of southern British Columbia and Vancouver Island, while the black-chinned hummingbird can make its way up the interior of southern British Columbia. The rufous hummingbird, considered to have the longest known avian migration, has a slightly wider distribution. It can be found in southwestern Yukon, most of British Columbia and southwestern Alberta.

With files from Chris Dale.

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