The Tiny Hummingbird

I was going to include this in my posts about the shooting match in West Virginia, but in the end, I thought it would be better as it's own post.

While we were waiting for the rain to pass, several of us sat on a beautiful porch in front of the house.  It had a roof and off of the roof, over the sides, hung long green vines.  On the other side of the vines, under the eves, were three hummingbird feeders.  As the rain came pouring down, we waited to see if any of the hummingbirds would come around.  We were assured that when it wasn't raining, there were sometimes 10-15 hummingbirds swarming around the feeders.  As the rain began to slow, we began to see things darting about just beyond the feeders.  Soon, five or six hummingbirds were buzzing past the feeders, hovering just briefly to drink.

[Please note, this bird did have two wings, but even shooting at 1/500th of a second, I couldn't catch it!] 

I took more pictures of these birds than I did of the shooting match!  The birds would so briefly fly near the feeders, it was difficult focusing and getting all my settings right before they flew off again!

If you look closely at the last two, you can see their tiny feet!  It was so fun watching them--I've never been that close to a hummingbird before and I've certainly never seen as many as we did in one setting!  We must have watched for at least half an hour.  Sorry my pictures aren't any better--photographing them was a bit beyond my amateur photographer talents!

Anyway, all that made me kinda want to invest in some hummingbird feeders...maybe next summer!