During the morning of Wednesday, December 30, 2020, I was exploring deep into a dark and remote region of a largely uncharted forest in northeast Georgia.  It was a pleasant morning.  The temperature was in the middle 40s.  There was a solid overcast and a slight breeze.  It was perfect weather for exploration.

As I penetrated deeper into the forest, noting every detail of the untouched region, I was stopped in my tracks, if I'd been leaving any tracks, which I wasn't, by a low, deep, moaning sound.  Experienced wilderness explorer that I am, I'd never before heard such a sound.  I confess that, momentarily, I was chilled to the bone.  However, my innate curiosity about wild and unknown things quickly set me back to my normal, alert self.

I moved carefully toward the sound, quietly, as only an experienced and skillful tracker can do.  I found cover behind trees, in low places in the ground, in locations where a less skilled woodsman would have thought that there wasn't any cover at all.  As I approached the source of the noise, my keen powers of observation informed me that the source of the sound wasn't static, as I'd first assumed.  I was reminded of one of my first lessons as a tracker:  never assume.  It can lead to a quick or, worse yet, a lingering death, far from help and alone in the wilderness.  So, I became even more cautious.  Even the slight breeze would have thought me silent.

My caution was indeed fortunate.  Just as I slipped into a perfect bit of cover, I saw it.  But it didn't see me.  It hummed past, scarcely a yard above me, seeking it's lunch.  I didn't move or even breathe.  I became as a piece of the landscape.  Thus, I wasn't able to get a picture of the thing, as it moved past, so close that I could almost have touched it.  But, it did leave me a calling card and I got a picture of that, shown below.


Incontrovertible Proof that Giant Hummingbirds Exist