I have noticed this about hummingbirds as well. We have a feeder on our deck and if you are out there when they are feeding expect to receive an inspection. I like to think the thought in their brain is “are you a flower?”

I’ve also had a hummingbird come within a few centimeters of landing on my hand while mounting biking (stopped, of course). I credit my new-at-the-time bright red gloves for that interaction.

Growing up my great grandmother kept about 3 dozen hummingbird feeders near her back porch at her farm so she could watch the hummingbirds as they fed. She easily went through 4 gallons of sugar water per day. I was told as a kid that she had been documented as having altered the migration paths of several flocks of hummingbirds because she had been maintaining her feeders for over 30 years at the time of her death and they would remember where her farm was.

They would flit past your head when you went out to refill them, but they seldom went more than a few feet away. You could stand under under the feeders and after a few minutes, if you were calm enough, they would start be willing to land on you and rest, or lick off any syrup you had gotten on your hands.

My sister had one land on her finger and point with its head to which flowers it wanted her to move her hand to. This was without a feeder, but in an area with lots of people around (at a winery).

I can go outside holding a feeder and as long as I stand still, after about a minute the hummers will feed while I'm holding the thing. Brave little birds.

You owe me a new keyboard ;-)

Is this from a book?

> There are quite a few symbiotic relationships in nature.

Yes, of course, but unless such a relationship is already established the odds are very much against a random encounter between different species being mutually beneficial.