Hummingbirds — cute, aren’t they? I tell you, they may appear to be sweet, benign little creatures, but they’re vicious… at least to other hummingbirds.
The ones in my backyard have been playing a mean game of King (or Queen) of the Hill for months now. When new ones figure out there’s a feeder here, there’s a whole new scramble for who’s gonna try to poke whose eye out with their needly beaks. And in these months, I have never ever seen two hummingbirds in the yard at the same time for more than an instant — that is, the time it takes one to dive-bomb another and scare it off.
Until today.
There was a brief moment when not one, not two, but three hummingbirds were in the yard simultaneously, with no one fucking wi’ ‘tother. Emma and Essie were in the tree and Earl was at the feeder, basically ignoring the other two.
Emma and Essie, however, were obviously doing some sort of a face off. They stared at each other, puffed themselves up, and then did this side-to-side wiggle oddly reminiscent of a guinea pig’s rumba, also known as rumblestrutting.
Who knows what curious turn of events may come next? Will the hummingbirds learn to (*gasp*) actually get along?
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