@Amberglas Very good point! I know that they called the human heart "Hummingbird On The Left," presumably because of how it constantly moved. I live in Arizona, and the local hummers (mostly Anna's, Broadbilled, tons of Costas and the occasional Lucifer) fight daily pitched battles over the feeder in my backyard. They'll dive at me if I'm near it, buzz around me to get a good look and then zoom off and hover about ten feet away to wait for me to leave. We have a HUGE hummer population here, and you're totally right to call them hover-dinosaurs. If you really want to attract them around here and you're out hiking, you wear something red; most of their desert nectar-bearing flowers are red, so they'll come to take a look.
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@Amberglas Very good point! I know that they called the human heart "Hummingbird On The Left," presumably because of how it constantly moved. I live in Arizona, and the local hummers (mostly Anna's, Broadbilled, tons of Costas and the occasional Lucifer) fight daily pitched battles over the feeder in my backyard. They'll dive at me if I'm near it, buzz around me to get a good look and then zoom off and hover about ten feet away to wait for me to leave. We have a HUGE hummer population here, and you're totally right to call them hover-dinosaurs. If you really want to attract them around here and you're out hiking, you wear something red; most of their desert nectar-bearing flowers are red, so they'll come to take a look.