We are fortunate on Canada’s West Coast, to witness one of the most fascinating and epic Spring wild bird migrations - that of the Rufous hummingbird. Males start arriving from Mexico around March and the females follow 2 short weeks later. They need as much sustenance as they can get to ensure a successful mating and breeding season, so they feed voraciously on flowers and nectar from neighbourhood feeders. They migrate in a circular pattern, travelling North up the Pacific West Coast as far as Alaska and they return to Mexico in a circular pattern via the inland Rocky mountains. Rufous hummingbirds are supremely territorial over their food sources and will fight their own species as well as our non-migrating, resident Anna’s Hummingbirds. I have delighted in watching these tiny terrors chase each other at high speed around the backyard. The males in particular are a force to be reckoned with, rearing up in a display of fierce posturing, their tail feathers fanning out with a flash of bright orange. In my painting, Dueling Hummingbirds, I’m interested in the speed and combative energy of the hummingbirds fragmenting against a backdrop of white cherry blossom