Hummingbirds! Hummingbirds! Hummingbirds!

January 13, 2002 5:44 PM

O: What sounds like a minature smoke alarm with a dying battery and has a tongue half as long as itself?
posted by y2karl (17 comments total)

Hummingbrids! Hummingbirds! Hummingbirds! I've seen one four days out of the last seven, in the middle of our admittedly mild Seattle winter. Whether it was a Rufous Hummingbird or an Anna's Hummingbird, I am still not sure but God Dog it, it brightened my day... And Nevada was transfixed, too stunned to make the spitty cry she makes at squirrels, crows, starlings and bushtits: it was the cat equivalent of seeing a UFO.

And that picture of one resting in someone's hand--I've heard of one man who fed one hummingbird one year and by the next summer, it would land on his shoulder. Of course, with a Warp 9 metabolism, I suppose we're the same as trees to them...

Here's Hummingbird by performed by Johnnie & Jack, recorded 1947, composed by Johnnie Wright, Jim Anglin and Jack Anglin for your linkeriffic excess, courtesy of Bob Dylan, and here is the call of the Rufous Hummingbird for comparison. Now, let's give a big Muppet Show welcome to Hummingbirds, Ya-a-a-ay!!!!
posted by y2karl at 5:46 PM on January 13, 2002

Damn! I meant Q: !
posted by y2karl at 5:47 PM on January 13, 2002

And I corrected that comment typo in the post before I cut it-what gives?
posted by y2karl at 5:49 PM on January 13, 2002

A. Because they don't know the words.
posted by diddlegnome at 5:50 PM on January 13, 2002

A: a woman's dream vibrator.
posted by Mach3avelli at 5:57 PM on January 13, 2002

The feeder is in for the winter. The stake taunts me, signalling a lack of my usual 20 or 30 visits a day that I see 4 feet from my desk. This spring, I'm getting all of them in my neighborhood!

On a positive note, had a red-tailed hawk land on one of our landscape lights by the pond, closely inspecting the duck decoys frozen in the ice. Keeps the cats on their toes.

P.S. Don't buy "nectar mix", make your own!
posted by dglynn at 6:14 PM on January 13, 2002

"a woman's dream vibrator."

Sounds like a miniature smoke alarm with a dying battery? Yikes. Wouldn't the constant chirping be, well, distracting?

Back on-topic (assuming there is one).

My grandmother feeds hummingbirds.

Fuck it, I can't use my grandmother and "vibrator" in the same post.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:51 PM on January 13, 2002

Damn! I meant Q: !

Well you said O and now I don't know what letter to use for my answer.

I can't use my grandmother and "vibrator"

Can't...breathe...
posted by rodii at 7:48 PM on January 13, 2002

Warning semi-self post. My dad takes pictures of the hummers around his place in South Texas.

Annas
Buff-bellied
Black-chinned
Ruby-throated
Rufous
posted by bjgeiger at 8:32 PM on January 13, 2002

My grandmother's Hummingbird vibrator is plumb wore out.
posted by Wizzle at 9:09 PM on January 13, 2002

damn, my mother-in-law just found a dead hummingbird on her patio. A beautiful bird, even in death. Red-orange iridescent patch on it's neck, iridescent green for much of the body plumage. I took pictures but somehow they somehow don't seem appropriate to post.
posted by mutagen at 1:07 AM on January 14, 2002

Are you kidding? We're always up for some nice dead bird pictures.
posted by Doug at 1:28 AM on January 14, 2002

One sultry Seattle summer evening, I was walking on a street planted with lots of bushes and trees. Suddenly, the largest dragonfly in the universe attacked me! No, it was a hummingbird, attracted by the orange shirt I wore.
posted by Carol Anne at 5:09 AM on January 14, 2002

A: Britney? Christina? sound like miniature smoke alarms to me...
posted by mattr at 8:01 AM on January 14, 2002

"a woman's dream vibrator."

I would have thought a woman's dream date - with a hair stuck in his throat :-)
posted by bregdan at 8:31 AM on January 14, 2002

Whoa, Carol Anne, you really had me going there with that dragonfly thing! What a shock! *waits for heart rate to return to normal*
posted by rodii at 8:41 AM on January 14, 2002

Hmm... Jurassic Dragonfly Park?
posted by y2karl at 8:57 AM on January 14, 2002