Ruby-throated
Saturday morning, on our return to Adam’s after gathering exotic wood from the Agassiz Theater in Harvard Square, and then breakfast at La Pro with Dan and Mark, we spied a skittish hummingbird dipping into the new feeder outside his back window. I ran to my truck to retrieve my camera, and then back to the room with the view, but the bird spotted my movements and flitted away. He’d come back, but disappear as soon as I raised my lens.
The fruits of my labor.
Adam said, “You need a blind.”
Yeah, well, not today, I don’t. I gathered my last cup of decaf and headed home. The very next day I opened an email from Adam and lookee here:
And the bird looks suspicious of that lens with all the towels around it!
Comment by rakkityed.schmahl — August 20, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
That’s REALLY dumb looking! But very kind of you, and apparently effective.
Comment by Jennifer — August 20, 2007 @ 8:23 pm
How wonderful! Aren’t they the sweetest little things? I have a feeder right outside my kitchen window and they are so used to us now. They are a constant source of joy. Even my Cocketiel likes them and they tolerate her screaming. They come right up when we sit on the deck just a few feet from them. Movement makes them flit off for a few minutes, but they always come right back.
Comment by Jen — August 21, 2007 @ 9:47 am
Ours is still getting accustomed and takes several minutes to come back. But despite appearances, he wasn’t eyeballing me (or my ridiculous wall of deliberately bland, tan cloth) — he constantly scans the skies as if imminent attack were a given. An odd impression of something so small that many predators would dismiss it as prey — one wouldn’t make a meal for a mouse, and they can outmaneuver almost anything, not to mention fight rather effectively with that needle beak (from everything I’ve heard, they’re quite territorial and aggressive, accomplished at fighting … ).
Comment by adam — August 21, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
They are very wary little fellows, aren’t they? At my sister’s house, one hummingbird likes to sit on a long twig that sticks out into the sky where it can survey the 360-degrees around it. Presumably it has a plan B when a predator swoops in.
Comment by rakkityed.schmahl — August 21, 2007 @ 2:40 pm
Very territorial. It’s fun to watch them chase each other around. You can hear them peeping very quietly, although all things being relative, I’m sure it’s war cries to their kind.
Comment by Jen — August 22, 2007 @ 4:28 pm