Albigail Alfano with hummingbird feeder in hand

REMEMBER THE HUMMINGBIRD LADY?

As the story and photos whipped around the Internet, they seemed so extraordinary that many people assumed there was some fakery involved: Why would Ruby-throated Hummingbirds feed and joust around a woman holding a nectar feeder in her hand?

In fact, so many people were charmed by the photos but had their doubts that several of the Web debunking sites checked things out and reported that Abigail Alfano truly was sitting with her backyard hummingbirds.

How it all came about: Abigail had been watching dozens of hummingbirds swarming the nectar feeders in her Louisiana backyard, wishing she could hold just one. So she sat beside the feeders for several hours over several days. Then she went out one morning with a red bottle cap filled with sugar water, while husband Sam snapped photos.

“Within 10 minutes the birds were drinking out of the cap and resting on my hands. It was sheer delight for me,” she told Birding Business. “They are light as a feather and simply beautiful.”