How Big Is a Hummingbird?

Things have gotten pretty wild at the hummingbird feeder these days. There's lots of arguing over whose turn it is, and chasing, and chittering and chirping. So we put up a second feeder the other evening. I washed and filled it, and my husband hung it from the clothes line above the deck.

The little birds found it almost instantly. They are what we might call "highly motivated" these days, with prospects of migration coming soon. So now we can look out the deck door windows and see them there almost any hour of the day. Free entertainment: the hummingbird show, morning, noon, and evening. It doesn't get much better than this!

One of the things that is important to know about hummingbirds is how absolutely tiny and adorable they are. They are no bigger than a minute, and they are fast as can be. When something small and round and green zips past me like a tiny rocket in the yard, I know just what it is: a hummingbird, of course!

The birds most enjoy eating at the feeder, but they also really seem to adore sitting on the clothes line itself. From there, they gaze all around, watching for other incoming hummers and surveying their tiny kingdom.

I snapped a few pictures of them on this day and discovered by accident that I now CAN show you how tiny they are. I included a little something in my photo that helps to show the scale. Look at this little bird, a female. She's not even as big as a clothes pin! Now THAT is small!

The soundtrack: Joni Mitchell, with Little Green.