Participant Photo: Mistaken ID

Rufous sides! Little bill! A friend told me he saw an unusual hummingbird at our restoration project, Jacob’s Nature Park, so I went to see for myself. In the pouring rain, this first year male Ruby throated put on a wonderful show. Jacob’s Park has several acres of mitigated wetlands. We used the Yardmap Habitat Network program to guide our restoration efforts. If your only experience with hummingbirds is at your feeder you are missing an incredible show! At Jacob’s, in late summer, the wetlands meadows are full of Jewelweed and Cardinal flowers so we see many Ruby Throateds racing across the wetlands and down the stream doing aerobatics I don’t see in my home habitat. But of all the photos of hummingbirds I have ever taken, and all the ones I have fed, this was the only time in Tennessee that one sat with the split tail and nose in the air, just enjoying the rainfall. We call this, “Jacob’s Magic.”