On Friday, May 18th, I was watering the plants in the backyard with my favorite watering tool: a water wand. It puts out lots of water but gently.

It was a beautiful sunny day. When I got to the bed where we’ve planted red twig dogwoods and a fothergila, a rufous hummingbird joined me.

The hummer seemed fascinated by the water. At first, it just hovered near the water. I thought, maybe it would swoop in for a sip. I held the wand as still as I could while the hummer hovered. Pretty soon, it got a bit bolder and began to try to perch on the water. In a minute or so, off it went.

When I moved over to the bed under the weeping cherry, the hummer came back.

It took a sip or two and then resumed the perching-on-the-water game. I could see its feet hanging into the water as it hovered. Once it even flew into the stream of water and then shook itself off, just like any bird does when taking a bath in a puddle. As it would appear to get tired, it would move up to perch on the wand for second. The plants I was watering got a good soaking because the hummer played for several minutes. I just continued to stand still.

This whole thing was a surprise to me. Last year, I saw exactly one hummingbird in our back yard and it didn’t stay long even though there was a feeder available. I’ve never seen a hummingbird play with a spray of water and I haven’t seen them be so calm around people before. When we lived in Scotts Valley, we had many hummingbirds hanging out at our place. Sometimes they even came into the house and they were always freaked out when we got close to them. This little Bellingham hummer was right beside me for several minutes.

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