Iridescent

Last weekend I took a short but intense road trip to Southern Colorado. On Saturday I thought I'd be occupied all day hiking with the Colorado Mountain Club, but that outing lasted just a few hours so I decided to join a tour of Zapata Ranch, home to bison and, as it turned out, hummingbirds. I had an hour before the tour began so I sat at a picnic table near the ranch's main cluster of buildings and, while eating my hiker's lunch of PB&J, was mesmerized by the movements, colors and sheen of these hummingbirds. There must have been a dozen of them whizzing about, hovering in mid-air before dashing off in some new direction, sometimes in pairs but often alone. Their airborne behavior reminded me of that of the Golden Snitch in Harry Potter's Quidditch games, that little ball that would zip around, hover, and then zoom off again. The ranch had set up a hummingbird feeder (above) and I was lucky to grab this shot of three birds at once. They did not linger at the feeder, either, but would take a sip of nectar and then dash off, only to return for another quick pitstop.

Coincidentally, today I received a letter from the Nature Conservancy, which owns Zapata Ranch, asking me to support its efforts to protect the hummingbirds' habitats along their 2,000 mile migration route. Having witnessed how marvelous these creatures are, and how tiny - the birds are four inches, their wings 2.5 inches long - I did not hesitate a second before writing a check.