Of Hummers, Rails, and Flickers

Regarding the female hummer of the previous post:  The score is 3:2 in favor of Anna's over a Costa's.  I am willing to be talked out of it, especially since Mike Patterson has handled many more hummers in person than I ever will, and he thought it a very young (first winter?) female Anna's, where the primary feathers versus tail length thing doesn't really work.   Okay... I did say I WAS confused by the little fluffball.

In another direction, a long drought is over, as yet another nemesis bird is ticked off the list:
I have heard MANY Sora's, but they have always managed to stay completely hidden from my eyes, even at only at 1-2 m distance. But today, I was out collecting samples for class tomorrow near the Lewis and Clark River mouth and got my first ever good look at a SORA rail.

It first flushed it from bank at about 3 m, then nervously strutted all over a floating mat of dead tule sedges. It was completely in the open, I got great looks at it from about 20 m thru the bins. Sweet moment! I was reminded of William Burt's very good read, "Shadowbirds." Unfortunately, I had no camera, so I have to display this lovely jpg:

image borrowed from http://en.wikipedia.org

And from our yard, Evan spotted a YELLOW-SHAFTED FLICKER (with red nape crescent, and no malar) this afternoon.

What Hummer Is This?

This little female hummingbird has been irregularly showing up at our feeder for the past month, but I just finally managed to get some pics...and she confuses me. 

Am interested to hear people's guesses as to ID and why they think so.  I will save my own thoughts so as not to bias others, but I did observe that the few times she has perched near the Anna's regulars (a male and female), she was smaller than either.  Today she and the female Anna's spent ~4 minutes doing a head-weaving display at each other.  Then a little later the male Anna's displayed his gorget prominently to her before chasing her away.