La Paz Waterfall Gardens: Hummingbirds

As I mentioned on my Facebook album, La Paz has a very good thing going with their twice-daily hummingbird feedings. The birds were technically wild, but habituated to come visit a garden area with about 50 hanging feeders. Twice a day the hanging feeders were covered, and guests were given small handheld ones.

As long as you did a suitable imitation of a tree, you were pretty much guaranteed to have a hummingbird come visit your feeder like this Bronze-Tailed Plumeleteer did with Taryn.

Hummingbirds don't necessarily seem like the toughest birds, but I love how this little Green-Crowned Brilliant seems to be telling the even littler insect, "Go ahead. Make my day."

Another Green-Crowned Brilliant, I think. For things whose wings beat 60 times per second they could be very accommodating about sitting still to pose sometimes.

Yup, accommodating.

Violet Sabrewing. He was a bit easier to pick out thanks to his size and color, and a coveted visitor to the kids' feeders.

A trifecta of female Green-Crowned Brilliants. One ...

... two ...

... and three.

This little lady seemed to have attracted a suitor. The males don't have the "spotted white underparts," only the females. If you thought that read "underpants," so did I the first time I saw it.

Danelle did some terrific multitasking here, shooting a picture with one hand while holding a feeder with the other. The bird is so vivid he almost looks computer-generated to me.

We made at least three separate visits to the hummingbird garden over our two-night stay. Definitely one of the neatest parts of the park!