Hanging On

...or taking off?
It was a windy day, not unusual for Spring.  I spotted this Black-chinned hummingbird resting on a branch in the Texas Ranger.  She sat there for what seemed like forever, giving me a chance to creep just a little bit closer. As you might imagine, with her situated there for so long, I took a bazillion shots.  Despite the creeping, I was still a bit too far away to get a perfectly sharp shot...but I blame that on the wind (and the fact that I still don't have my tripod).  Still, I liked her extended wings.

Here's a tiny bit of trivia about hummers  I may not have shared before:

     *hummingbirds perch about 80% of the time.
     *approx 25-30% of a hummingbird's body weight is flight muscle (compared to other birds' ave. of 15%)
    *they can fly in the rain and can shake their heads to dispel drops of water; they do so violently, 132 times per second, and rotating 202° - all while flying and maintaining direction.
     *they have no sense of smell
     *the iridescence of hummingbird feathers is a result of prism-like micro-structures that fragment light into components of the spectrum, by a process of absorption and angle of light.
     *more than 330 species of hummingbirds live in North and South America, only 5% of which live primarily north of Mexico.