Sunbathing Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Yesterday shortly after noon, I was standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window while I washed something, when a Ruby-throated Hummingbird flew to the deck rail just outside the window. It was another very hot day, and the deck rail there is in full, bright sun. I often see a hummingbird going past, visiting the red blooms on the geranium plants, or going back and forth to the feeder in the shade.

This hummingbird sprawled out there on the wooden rail, wings outstretched, feathers fluffed up, and head tilted at an angle, with its long bill pointed slightly upward and parted. Its back looked faintly blue, rather than green, but I’m sure that was a trick of the light and the way its feathers were fluffed.

It sat like this, barely moving, for three or four minutes or more, long enough for me to get binoculars and take a closer look through the window, and because it looked as if it were panting and its head seemed to be listing to one side, I thought maybe it was injured, so I started out the door to the deck – and it immediately sprang up and zipped into the branches of the oak that hang over the other half of the deck and the bird baths and hummingbird feeder. Apparently it was fine.

Today around the same time, and in the same blistering hot weather, the same thing happened again, with the little hummingbird sprawled and fluffed out on the deck rail, head tilted, bill raised and parted, and this time I decided it must be doing this on purpose – taking a sunbath.

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