Stopping momentarily to rest and feed on their southbound journey, hummingbirds pay us a yearly visit in later summer and early fall. The return journey in spring somehow is more discreet.
They might go as far as the Gulf of Mexico, which they will cross without food in what I can only compare to humankind going to the moon, their tiny heart beating twelve hundred times a minute.
They are adorable, barely bigger than a cicada, and impressively difficult to photograph, given the speed at which they buzz from flower to flower.
Here are a few of this year’s visitors. All females it seems, no hint of red throat. I even had a little fun with infrared.
Ruby-throated hummingbird on jewel weed in Prospect Park – notice the ants farming aphids
