My Experience with Hummers

Last night I emailed a nice little story to Rodger (the REAL King of France) over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical about something I had the privilege of experiencing first hand - quite literally. I didn't expect him to post it on his site. I wasn't exactly looking for the publicity and the only reason I sent it to him was because he had posted about his experiences with "Hummers" in the past. I was surprised to hear my wife LOL while she was browsing the net this morning and she told me that Rodge had my "Hummer" experience posted on his site. After checking it out myself and embellishing on the details of the story, I decided to tell the rest of it here in this post.

I know I have not been posting here in a while and truthfully, I have not had the time nor the desire to rant about the F***ed up state of our country. We have fallen under siege to an out-of-control government that is lead by an illegal alien and radical communist who is backed by an equally leftist congress that rubber stamps his agenda without conscience. Be it far from my desire to once again become the target of leftist thuggery from radical feminists and others of their ilk, but seeing the tide turning by the sentiment of a growing number of Americans has given me some much needed hope for the future of our dying nation ...more on that subject at another time.

This past Thursday night I was in my garage cleaning caked up grass from under my mower when I heard the fluttering of what I thought was an oversized horse fly. Looking up toward my ceiling, I saw whatever it was land on the top shelf above my workbench. I had no idea what it was but it had to be something unusual, so I got my camera, climbed up a ladder, and realized it was a HUMMINGBIRD!!!



As I got close to her, snapping flash pictures, she laboredly flew over to my garage door frame where she rested, apparently too tired to continue. I moved the ladder, climbed up again and noticed that she was covered in spider and cob webs.



After taking a couple more pictures, I reached up, gently took hold of her and got down off the ladder. She sat remarkably still while I cleaned all the webs off of her wings, her beak, and her claws.



When I finished, she just sat there in my open hand and let me carry her around.



I wasn't sure if she was just too tired or feeling safe and comforted or maybe a little of both.



She even sat perched on my finger for a while with absolutely no desire to take off!!!




I took her over to some flowers that momma had growing under the kitchen window and set her down.



Then, after about 10 minutes of rest, she sat up, looked at me blinking a couple of times and took off just as fast as could be.

That’s only the second time I saw a hummingbird this season, and an experience I will never forget.

But now ...the rest of the story!

Earlier that evening, before dinner, I was outside walking my black lab so she could do her business when I saw what appeared to be a very large bumble bee. This thing was huge and what struck me as being highly unusual was that it had a pair of long antennae, a fuzzy tail, and a long curled up nose!!! The first thing I thought was WTF IS THIS THING?!?! Well, you know me ...Johnny on the spot with the freakin' camera. So I got my Olympus and started taking pictures of it, hoping to identify it later on the internet.





It just so happens that it was a Snowberry Clearwing (Hemaris diffinis) HUMMINGBIRD sphinx moth!

I flat out refuse to get into the details on this thing, so for all those curious, here's a link that strange flying bug posing as a bumble bee.





That make two HUMMERS in one day for me!!!

Wow, I must be blessed or something :)