My Hummingbird Friend 5-19

It was an odd thing to have happened once but it has happened again and in a different location.  You may remember a few summers ago at our house in Fallon, NV a hummingbird sat in our garden and allowed me to touch her.  I posted a picture of her and Larry actually saw me touch her, but no pictures of the touching.


Here at our current home I've had another female hover near me as if communicating and a couple of weeks ago while I was watering she acted like she wanted to play in the water.  She had sat up in a tree and I sprayed the tree thinking she would drink from the dripping leaves, but she flew out and landed on the wire fence.  So I slowly moved the water towards her and she didn't move, so I sprayed her with the water and she commenced bathing...fluffing and ruffling and having a grand time in the spray for a few minutes.  When she was done she flew out of the water and landed a few feet over back on the wire fence.  I got right below her and she didn't care, I raised my hand up as far as I could reach, only about six inches from her, she still didn't mind and continued with her preening.  That alone was a fun experience.


Today I had pulled up a couple of huge batches of violas and tossed them outside the garden fence for the deer.  I was working right near the fence and what I thought was a big bug flew under my arm and landed in that viola batch...it was a hummingbird, female again.  She didn't hover, she landed in the flowers and started harvesting nectar,crawling around through the flowers.  She flew into the garden and started doing pollen collecting again in the same manner on more of the violas.  She didn't seem to care that I was near and she let me touch her many times, stroking her head and back.  So I thought I would scoop her up in my hands to see what she would do.  She looked at me like...hey I'm busy here, but when I put her back down on the flowers, she just continued on with her business and didn't zoom away as I expected!

Well by now I was wishing I had my camera...what an opportunity!  Her behavior continued so I chanced running into the house for the camera.  These pictures are NOT with a zoom lens, I was just inches from her.  I just had to share them all!


I decided to see if she would let me hold her again...I gave Larry the camera and scooped her up...he got one really good picture!  She continued all around the garden crawling through the violas like a big bug, hovering and chirping every once in awhile and eventually landed on the fence.  She just sat there while I talked to her and YES stroked her little breast.  It was a crazy, crazy experience.  She eventually went back to pollen gathering and I went on with whatever I ended up doing.