“No, hummingbirds normally do not drink plain water. They get all the water and hydration they need from the sweet nectar in flowers or sugar water in feeders.”<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/black-chinned-hummingbird-4846-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-chinned-hummingbird-4846-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
But don’t tell that to this little lady. This is the first of five photos (taken in a burst) I got of her with the tip of her bill touching a tiny water drop on a nasturtium leaf.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/black-chinned-hummingbird-4850-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-chinned-hummingbird-4850-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
This is photo #5. In all the photos in-between the tip of her bill was in or touching the water drop. I suspect she was tasting it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/black-chinned-hummingbird-4851-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-chinned-hummingbird-4851-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Then, in the very next photo in the burst, the water drop was gone. So she must have slurped it down. And there’s no question that it was plain water and not nectar, unless sugar water is coming out of my garden hose.<\/p>\n
I suppose it’s possible that she knocked the water drop to the ground, but I think that’s unlikely – in part because she continued to go after other water drops on the leaves.<\/p>\n
What do you think? Am I delusional or was she drinking plain water?<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least occasionally. (3 photos)<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,334,395],"tags":[7942,7957,311],"class_list":["post-172144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","tag-do-hummingbirds-drink-plain-water","tag-nasturtium-leaves","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-IMw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/black-chinned-hummingbird-4846-ron-dudley.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172144"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172177,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172144\/revisions\/172177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}