Welcome to my free Coloring Pages Blog and Happy May Day! I already posted this once in English.
Since it is May Day, today's new drawing is of a May Day Fairy.
English Readers, I posted this in Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Turkish, and Chinese.
Those countries were the non-English speaking countries mentioned in the post today.
This is the re-posting of today's May Day post in English
May Day Fairy with Tulips and a Bee Hummingbird
Today is May Day! So I hope you had a happy May Day! May Day is celebrated in many parts of the world. In some countries, it is a national holiday. May Day celebrates the change of seasons from winter into Spring. It was the most important holiday of the year for the ancient Celts. It has also, in modern times, become a celebration of workers in some parts of the world. Today's drawing includes a Bee Hummingbird and this bird is only found on the island of Cuba and Cuba celebrates May Day (today) as a national holiday. So it is appropriate that the tiny Bee Hummingbird is honored today in this picture of a May Day Fairy.
Bee Hummingbirds are the smallest bird in the world. So, since birds evolved from Theropod Dinosaurs some scientists call birds "Avian Dinosaurs" ... and since this is the smallest bird ever we could also say that it is the smallest of all Dinosaurs! Bee Hummingbirds are only about 2 - 2.4 inches long. That is 5.5 - 6.1 centimeters long. The males are smaller than the females. The female Bee Hummingbird weighs up to .092 ounces or a mass of 2.6 grams. The smaller males weigh only .069 ounces or a mass of 1.95 grams. Compared to the larger females, the male Bee Hummingbird have more colorful feathers on the top of their head, their throat, and on the top of their body. I recommend that you look them up on the internet to know how to best color this drawing.
Hummingbirds are only found in the Western Hemisphere. Paleontologists HAVE recently found fossilized skeletons of hummingbirds in Germany. The fossils are 30 million years old so once upon a time hummingbirds did live and probably originally evolved in what is now Europe.
Tulips seem to have evolved between China and Europe. They were cultivated in the Ottoman Empire and imported to Holland, (The Netherlands). Tulips that have been imported to the New World or Western Hemisphere are actually popular with some hummingbirds. Hummingbirds can be found from the southern part of Alaska to the most southern part of Chile in South America. There are around 340 species of hummingbirds! Hummingbirds have been raised in captivity in at least one area of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. I should also mention that hummingbirds are all over the Caribbean Islands. . . . . including the Bee Humminbird, that is only found in Cuba.
The Netherlands are known for their Tulip Festival. It is located in a place called Keukenhof in a town called Lisse. Lisse is about 35 kilometers south of Amsterdam. It is spectacular. Here where we live we have the Ashton Gardens Tulip Festival this time of year at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah, USA.
I need to also mention that this Fairy in the drawing is a May Day Fairy. A May Day Fairy loves flowers and is happiest in the spring when the flowers come out. Since these Fairies love flowers it is not a surprise that they often have an affinity for pollinators. A hummingbird is a pollinator. So in essence a May Day Fairy could also be a Hummingbird Fairy and a Flower Fairy. This May Day Fairy obviously lives in Cuba and her name is Silvana. Silvana is a popular girl name in Cuba and it means "from the forest." This name makes sense because Bee Hummingbirds live in dense forests and along the edges of the forests on the Caribbean island of Cuba.
NON-ENGLISH READERS, THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH MIGHT NOT TRANSLATE WELL. An interesting fact is that the term "Mayday" is very different from the holiday we call "May Day." "Mayday" is what is said by a pilot, or ship's captain, or anyone to report a severe situation over the radio. This is worldwide. It is traditional to say "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" So you say it three times. So, like I said before, the word Mayday is not the same word as the May Day holiday. The May Day holiday has been around since the 1200s. The emergency call of "Mayday" comes from the French word "M'aidez" which means "help me" in French. During the early days of air travel between England and France, it was found that the S.O.S signal that was used by ships that had the use of Morse Code via wireless telegraph was not very viable for verbal calls of distress over the radio of planes. So the word "Mayday: was adopted instead. So, "Mayday" does not equal "May Day."
NOTE: This drawing was partially based on my granddaughter's toy Fairy. So I will post a photo of her toy below this paragraph. The drawing, in printable form, can be found by clicking on the correct button and scrolling down to the bottom of the list. Click on the title and you get the printable drawing. So, first, click on the button labeled . . . . . Fantasy, Myths, and Circus.... and scroll down.
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