I stood next to my brother’s window and held the lens of my camera in between the slats of the blinds and waited. It wasn’t long until a female hummingbird flew down. My camouflage didn’t seem to work all that well, though, because she noticed me almost immediately and buzzed off in disgust. But I waited some more. It wasn’t long until either A) she came back or B) another female decided she was thirsty. Either way her action was the same as the first. She buzzed off. I was determined to get a picture of one eating, so I waited a little longer.

A good while later a male decided to come down and visit the feeder. He saw that I was there and was curious as to my reason for standing there but he didn’t seem to care all that much. He ate while hovering for a second or two and then decided to land. I am glad that he did, or I would have never been able to get the quality picture that I did. If you look, you can see that there are no little perches on the feeder. The hummingbird is clasping his tiny feet over the edge. And before I knew it, he too buzzed off. I must have taken 10 pictures of him sitting there, but only two turned out good enough for blog material. I guess I might have to buy a better camera for close ups like this one.

I have actually had the opportunity to feed hummingbirds by hand. Now that I think about it, I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of them when I had the chance. But, anyways, when I volunteered at Carolina Wildlife Care last summer, people would sometimes bring in hurt or young hummingbirds along with all kinds of wildlife. . . ie squirrels, opossums, all kinds of birds, snakes, turtles and all sorts of other types of wild animals you can find in South Carolina. You don’t realize how small hummingbirds are until you hold one. They are probably my favorite bird. Although, Gnatcatchers are pretty cool too, but they don’t know how to fly backwards. Heh.