This year Santa brought my mom a video camera for her bird feeder, and the verdict is in: it’s awesome! My dad set up the camera next to the busiest hummingbird feeder, which has been busier than usual with this week’s cold snap. So now my mom gets a notification every time her hummingbirds come to visit! She’s getting these neat videos with all sorts of wing positions. We zoomed in the video and slowed down the clips a little to see if one of the birds is banded. So far it’s hard to say, so we’re trying again tomorrow with a better video quality. Hummingbird bander Fred Bassett will be back in town soon, and we’re hoping he will make time to visit us again, especially since I didn’t get to see him last year. Actually, my dad has the biggest vision for this camera: to resight the Rufous he saw a few weeks ago!! :)

Here’s another video with some more clips. This time we caught her male hummingbird with his bright red gorget. Turn up your sound and listen. You can hear the chatter of the birds and the buzz of their wings! Watch the last clip closely – the male is nectaring, then he gets chased off by another hummer!