Humming Happily

The story starts with Brett taking me on a date. And it ends with a hummingbird. Now for the details.

Back when Brett and I first met and a date took a lot of planning and generally lasted a long weekend, I came down to visit him and we decided to go check out the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and see what was out there.

Then, shortly after I moved here Heidi came out to visit and we went out there together. I bought a year membership at that time and have kept it ever since. If you come visit, that’s where I’ll take you. And for a while I was heading out at least once a month just myself because things change that often in nature.

When Brett and I were getting some engagement pictures taken we went out there and got some gorgeous ones. Desert sunsets are something else.

I love seeing the different cactus bloom at different times of the year. I think they are beautiful. And we definitely have to stop and say hi to the tortoise.

But my favorite place is the hummingbird aviary. To sit there and have those tiny gorgeous birds buzz your head and watch them appear to defy physics while they just sit in the air. They are territorial. But they are also creatures of habit and have favorite branches. If you can figure out those branches you stand a good chance of getting a good picture.

And if the new baby birds have just left the nest they will sit still even longer. We have this photo of a newish hummingbird printed as an 8×10 hanging on the wall in our front room. At that size it’s several times larger than the actual bird.

I love getting photos of the hummingbirds. Here are a few other favorites.

See that last one, with the bird on the nest? They are the tiniest little nests and they have one to two teeny tiny little eggs in there and then you get super tiny baby hummingbirds. It’s fascinating.

This past week, after building a snowman on Sunday morning, I was out in our front yard pulling weeds on Wednesday afternoon (because winter and spring really are that short here and we’re already on our way into summer) when I heard a hummingbird in the tree above me. So I sat down on the sidewalk and watched it and I noticed it kept coming back to the same place. So I looked closer, and it was building a nest in our tree. :woot:

Thursday afternoon I pulled out one of my old hooks I used for bird feeders in Utah and Brett helped me put it in our front yard right in front of our front window. We wanted to make the hummingbird feel welcome and let her know that she has good neighbors and has picked a good spot for her nest. I put out the feeder and we went inside and started finishing off the potato chips and within five minutes she found the feeder. I love it. I can sit on our couch and watch out the window. It’s my own little hummingbird aviary experience right at home.

She isn’t consistently on the nest yet so I’m pretty sure there aren’t eggs yet. But I’ll definitely be watching.