Hummingbird Encounter

When we were in Arizona, our hotel had a nice little patio area where you could sit and read a book outside without the sun beating down on you.  Mama went out there at one point just to feel the warmth of the outdoors when she saw a hummingbird.  Then she saw something she never saw before - a hummingbird land in a tree!  So, she watched for a while.  Finally she braved the indoors for the camera and super awesome zoom lens.  Voila!  Awesome hummingbird photos!  For the sake of this post, we assume he/she was a girl birdy...

This one is just a close up in the tree...

Then she started to ruffle her feathers and scratch behind her ears...

Then, as seems customary with birds, after a good head and ear scratching, a good wing flapping is in order...

And then, she was off!  Here she is taking a drink from some of the local flora...

How does she drink, you ask?  With this super awesome long tongue!  Check it out!

One of the coolest parts of this for Mama, besides getting documentation and a cool tongue photo (she just sticks it out like she's tasting the air or something) was being able to hear the hummingbird's call.  She makes this really unique noise, so when she flew off that first time and came back, Mama was able to find her in the tree by her call.

Mama had recently watched The Big Year, so maybe that's why she was so into birding on this trip...