When visited SF I glanced at a bush with flowers and just stopped in my tracks: a hummingbird! Outside of a zoo! "Look, look, a hummingbird" I said to my US GF.
She was not impressed. Apparently they're really common in the US.
Which is wrong.
Hummingbirds should never be common. They are animals of wonder.

I think it depends on what part of the US, jouke. In coastal California, they seem to be everywhere, and we had quite a few when I lived in the Southeast. But I don't remember any in the Midwest or Northeast.

Despite how common they are where I currently am, I still am pretty amazed by them.

That's awesome.

It's so easy to lose the wonder about the things we see everyday.
Same here. So I guess it's time for a romantic dinner with the blackbird. To rekindle my admiration for its song.

I used to have an overgrown apple tree that was filled with hummingbirds every spring during blossom time. It was stunning.

Hummingbirds are awesome. We saw them fairly regularly at the house where I grew up. On one occasion, one of them was hovering over the front porch, just outside the living room window. Unfortunately, our cat was also outside and decided to try to catch it. Note the word "try" though.

The cat took one swipe at the bird, but somehow it was instantly hovering a few inches higher up and the cat missed. The cat tried again, but the hummingbird dodged a few inches to one side this time. Still just hovering and looking at the cat. I guess it must all seem like slow motion to a hummingbird, and they must be used to dodging tree branches that blow around in the wind and that sort of thing.

It finally realized the cat was actually trying to catch it, and wasn't just some slow-moving hazard to be dodged. In the blink of an eye, the hummingbird went from hovering to flying away at full speed. It's amazing how agile they are.

Heh, the hummingbirds here are super-aggressive (which would be waaaay less cute if they were any larger) and they have our cat bullied into submission. When they fly up to her, she cringes back and occasionally will ask to be let back inside.

I've also seen them get into chest-bumping matches with bumblebees who got too close to the birds' favorite flowers, and I've seen a group of them swarming a hawk who had the audacity to sit quietly in a tree.

Like I said, it's cute because they're small, but the ones in California, at least, are little teeny bullies.