ColorChallenge Orange Tuesday: “Itching on a Branch”

Strangeness comes around a corner on a sunny day when a newly acquired and unusual friend comes wizzing by… Which one of your friends would travelling over 3000 miles to come to my location every year to come by for a seasonal visit? It would take about 150 of them to weigh a total of 1 single pound, with super powerful pectoral muscles taking up to 30% of its entire mass, averaging 1200 heart beats per minute and flapping its wings between 50 and 200 times per seconds, you probably have understood what kind of friend I am referring to: The Rufous Hummingbird.

The season of love for hummingbirds had started a little while earlier in May and, being one of my very favourite subject then, catching a glimpse and a clear photograph of these miracles of the animal kingdom is not only a challenge but an exhilarating experience in itself, at least for me. Being so fast, capable of reaching speeds of over 100 km/h (60 miles per hour) on a dive or half that speed on a horizontal departure and this in 1/10th of a second!

Renown for being the fiercest of all hummingbirds, their territorial displays are legendary. Here, this mature elderberry bush provides a perfect watchtower for the nest found about 2 meters below (8 feet). The vivid greens of the young leaves and the ripening berries are offering a great contrast with the sky, the branches and my tiny friend glowing orange.

It had been eating for a while when it decided to perch itself over this branch’s dead end. I had observed many different behaviours over the years and managed to photograph a few of them. In this picture, a scratching maybe even washing behaviour offers an incredible pose as it bent down and twisted itself just under the leaf while keeping watch over my every movement. One more moment witnessing the grace of rufous hummingbirds!