Killer hummingbird

Looking at the picture on the right, wouldn't your first thought be something along the lines of, "Ohhhh, how cute!" That's what I used to think of all hummingbirds; that is, until we met her. We recently moved to our current house, and so are learning the joys of home ownership. Little did I know that that included having to protect yourself and your loved ones from a tiny, kamikaze bird who was defending her territory with the ferocity of a threatened rottweiler.

When we first saw her, we were charmed by this little being who insisted on adopting our front porch. She became bolder and bolder upon each meeting; we then realized that there was a nest nestled (Bootstrap's bootstraps-- I'm not Super Random Girl for nothing) at the top of one of the pillars holding up the front porch. And the rest is history... Whether we're working in the yard close to the front porch or (heaven forbid) actually sitting on the front porch, she makes sure to let us know who is the boss.

Which actually brings me to a funny story. We were at home one evening and were in the middle of feeding the baby her dinner. The doorbell rang, so my DH went to answer it while I hung out by the baby's high chair. It didn't take him very long to get to the door; but when he got there, the visitor was already halfway down the sidewalk. So when Michael opened the door, he called to the visitor, "Can I help you?" The guy walked back to the porch, meanwhile looking very nervous. This was early on in our hummingbird cohabitation, so Michael had no idea why the guy was acting so weird. Finally, he figured it out when he saw the hummingbird and the guy asked if they (hummingbirds) were dangerous. She was swooping all over the place, and she does get pretty close... The funny thing is, the guy was going door-to-door selling home alarm systems! The irony was great...

It's funny when this happens to other people, especially total strangers who are trying to get you to buy things. But when we had a recent CO scare (our carbon monoxide alarm went off one afternoon), I took the baby out to the front porch since the backyard was fully exposed to the afternoon sun. We had to sit on the porch the absolute furthest from where the bird's nest was, and even then, our little winged friend kept swooping by to keep us in line...

The picture I posted above is not one that I took. I found out the hard way that our little friend doesn't like her picture taken. I have several frames of assorted, crooked views of our porch floor, the sky, and the grass by the front porch due to my panicking when the bird swooped in right as I was taking her picture. I haven't tried again since.

If I ever do get a decent picture of her (hopefully in her nest-- it's a pretty cute sight), I'll post it.