It's not a hummingbird.

At the botanical garden today, 2 women were staring at a little beastie that was going at the butterfly bush. It was not a butterfly.


(Enlarge.)

"Do you think that's a hummingbird or an insect?" asked one of the women, who seemed quite involved in the identification process. It wasn't easy, because it was small and darted around. The wings were nearly invisible.

I said: "To me, it looks like a miniature flying lobster, so I'm going to guess insect."

She said, "Yes, I think you're probably right, because it keeps hanging around, and hummingbirds are shy."

Instinctively recoiling at sentimentality and remembering this, I said, "Oh? I've seen some very aggressive hummingbirds. I've seen some hummingbirds who were real jerks."



Hey! Look at the tongue. Maybe it is some kind of crazy butterfly.

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene says it's a hummingbird clearwing moth.

AND: Peter Hoh thinks it's a snowberry clearwing, and that looks right to me.

AND: Rick Lee said:

I just posted one of those also... I asked my friend the entomologist if it was a hummingbird moth and she said it was a close relative, the bumblebee moth.

Hey, he got his to hold still... plus he's a professional photographer. No fair!

Hummingbirds are jerks.

Somebody wanted to see hummingbirds. Was it Chip? Meade seems to think it was Chip. So here they are, and let me tell you, they are little bastards. They are tiny — for birds — but if they were bees, they'd be huge and horrible. Watch this video and you'll see, a hummingbird cares only for itself. If you could read their thoughts, translated into English, it would be: "Get the fuck out of my way. This is mine, all mine."

Birds are assholes.

And people are hilarious. [HEY: Watch the video at the link! I tried to embed it, and the code didn't work. There's another video below, but it's a bonus video.]

And here's the whole movie "The Birds" compressed into 1 minute and 40 seconds: