It wasn’t what I expected when I started my bird-watching walk around the great blue heron rookery at Farmington Bay yesterday but I will tell you it was a most pleasant surprise, one that I am glad that I stumbled across by shear chance.
I say by chance because the nature trail I took wasn’t the path I originally was planning on taking.
For some unknown reason, I changed my mind last minute.
Sometimes us nature photographers will do that I guess.
Literally, as I was locking my car door, I decided to call an audible, as the saying goes, and traverse down the trail that encircles the heron rookery, a route I rarely take if truth be told.
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I had just barely started down the trail when a hummingbird buzzed right by me.
A few minutes later, another one passed by, then another….
You can see where I am going with this, can’t you?
Before I got 100 yards from the parking lot, I came across a small but very active group of hummingbirds buzzing around the edge of the pond I was about to encircle on my walk.
I could tell several of them were male black-chinned hummingbirds but why were they out in a wetland like this was the next question that arose.
Watching them for a moment gave me my answer, just to the south of the nature trail I was on sat a moderate patch of what I later learned was lesser Indian paintbrush, a native wildflower that can live in wetland areas such as Farmington Bay.
The hummingbirds were all over the Indian paintbrush, constantly fighting one another for a chance to feed on the flower’s sweet nectar.
What a great opportunity for a few hummingbird photos feeding on these beautiful wildflowers, or so I thought.
Being as I wasn’t planning on taking any photos yesterday or even blogging about anything, I actually, full confession time here, well, left my camera home.
I rarely, and I mean RARELY leave my camera at the house when I visit a nature preserve, and, well, I paid the price for it as I had to rush home and grab my camera before the heat of the day set in.
The pictures aren’t the best but they do at least show the hummingbirds feeding on the lesser Indian paintbrush to give others an idea of what to look for if they are heading out to Farmington Bay in the near future.
This particular patch of wildflowers was just west of the Eccles Wildlife Education Center about 100-200 yards or so, just south of the nature trail.
It was just a very unique find for me as I have never seen hummingbirds feeding on wildflowers in a wetland before.
Oh, I have seen a hummingbird here or there in passing at places like Farmington Bay and the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, but to find an active group of hummingbirds feeding on Indian paintbrush in a wetland like this is, at least in my book I would say, quite unusual and kind of unique.
So if you are out and about in nature, keep your eyes and ears open because you may never know what is out there unless you look.
You might be pleasantly surprised by what you could find, I know I certainly was yesterday.
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