Meet our new pet, a hummingbird we've named Hawg, due to his insatiable appetite. My mom loves hummingbirds, but spends so much time in her recliner that she rarely has opportunity to enjoy the view of them feeding at the feeder by our goldfish pond. When I saw some window feeders that attach to the window with suction cups, I bought a couple of more hummingbird feeders to go with it, so my mom could enjoy the view from her favorite vantage point. Now we have 3 hummingbird feeders up and their presence seems to have incited a bit of unrest amongst warring factions of hummingbirds -- there are hummingbirds buzzing around everywhere now, and fighting over the feeders like cats and dogs.

One little fellow in particular has claimed the newest window feeder for himself and he has no mind to share, save with the neighboring yellow jackets. Not only is he outrageously greedy, he is brazen and sports a voracious appetite. When I shot one of the reference photos for this painting, I was leaning out the other side of the window (it's a sliding window), only 12" away, at most. As I held the camera steadily focused on the feeder, Hawg buzzed me several times before he decided it was safe to feed in my presence (or maybe he was trying to chase ME away), but once he had settled the issue in his own mind, he soon returned to gorge himself as I snapped away. I was able to get enough reference photos to make a collage to give the feel of him coming in for a landing on the feeder.

There are some more things I think I may want to do with the portrait maybe later (when I have more TIME...hahahaha), but I just really could not wait to show off the results of my first very own hummingbird reference photo shoot!

Anyone know what species of hummingbird Hawg is?