A Hummingbird Party

Here is something I got in my email:

WOW!

This is something I have never seen before, or ever even heard of. This lady lives in a Hummingbird fly zone. As they migrated, about 20 of them were in her yard. Just for a lark, she took the little red dish and filled it with sugar water and this is the result.

Snopes.com verifies that the story is true, and provides further details:

A Hummingbird in the Hand.

It seems the photo owners, Sam & Abigail Alfano, emailed the photos to friends, not realizing that the friends would forward them to their friends, and soon the pics would be sent all around the world.

The Alfanos also have their own web page:

The Hummingbird Lady

On that page, Abigail explains how the photos came to be:

"I am Abigail Alfano, the woman in the photos. My husband, Sam is the photographer. We live in Pine, Louisiana which is approximately 1 1/2 hours north of New Orleans.This year we had more hummingbirds in our yard than I ever recall. The feeder sits right outside of my window where I drink my morning coffee. I remember watching the birds one morning and telling my husband that I wish I could just hold one! We decided to give it a shot."

"Over the course of several days, I would simply stand beside the feeder so that they would get used to my presence. Then, I began putting my hands around the feeder so that in order to drink they had to land on my fingers. I was amazed at how quickly they were willing to do this.

The next step was to remove the feeder and place a small red cap on an old milk can in the same area. They eventually found the small replacement and began feeding. The morning the photos were taken, I simply went outside and filled the cap with the sugar water, placed it in the palm of my hand, and sat very very still. Within ten minutes, they were resting in my hands, drinking. It was sheer delight for me! I was even able to move my hands around a bit with the birds on my fingers. They are light as a feather...and simply beautiful. I can't wait until next year."

See their site for more information. Please note that the photos are copyrighted. Someone in Tennesse fraudulently entered one in a photo contest and won, but they were exposed.

You can see more hummingbird photos from their photo gallery.