Wet Female Broad-Tailed Hummingbird Perched on Bee Balm Plant - I of IV

Summer, Rocky Mountain Front Range, Colorado.

I was surprised to be able to capture the hummingbird with her tongue out as she captured water mist; a moment of serendipity!

SERENDIPITY: "means a 'fortunate happenstance' or 'pleasant surprise'. It was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. In a letter he wrote to a friend Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made by reference to a Persian fairy tale, *The Three Princes of Serendip.* The princes, he told his correspondent, were 'always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of'.

"The notion of serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of scientific innovation such as Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin in 1928 and the invention of the microwave oven by Percy Spencer in 1945 [and when a hummingbird sticks out its tongue in 2014].

"The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company. However, due to its sociological use, the word has been exported into many other languages." - "Serendipity,” Wikipedia

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Hummingbird Tongues - Tiny Micro-Pumps: theconversation.com/hummingbird-tongues-are-tiny-pumps-th...

Taken on: August 18, 2014

Tags:

Wet

Female

Hummingbird

Selasphorus platycercus

Order

Caprimulgiformes

Family

Trochilidae

Smallest of Birds

Bird

Cricket-Like

Whistle in Flight

Camouflage

Green

Back

Crown

White

Throat

Breast

Black Spots

Rusty Sides

White-Tipped

Tail

Feathers

Strong

Migration

Instinct

Perched

Bee Balm

Monarda didyma

Tubular

Flowering

Perennial

Plant

Summer

August

Colorado

North America

Droplets

Water « less

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Camera: Panasonic DMC-ZS40, f/6.4, 1/250 sec, 129mm, ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Panasonic DMC-ZS40
Aperture:	f/6.4
Exposure Time:	0.004 sec (1/250)
Focal Length:	129mm
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	High gain up
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Ver.1.0
Show full info

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