When it comes to bird names, ornithologists are a pretty sober lot. Typically, it's just a color, a body part, a location and a general descriptor: Red-tailed Hawk. Eastern Towhee. Blue Jay. Orange-rumped Parakeet. But when it comes to the hummingbirds, those same staid biologists went rather off the deep end. They were bewitched and bedazzled by the tiny birds, and named them accordingly: sunbeams, angels, emeralds, sapphires, sprites, fairies, comets, woodstars and jewelfronts vie with the plain old "hummingbirds" in the indices of Central and South American bird books. And when you see one in person, you understand why.
A tiny Coppery-headed Emerald doesn't even bend the edge of the leaf he's sitting on.
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