April 30, 2009 @ 7:45 pm | Filed under: Nature Study
I stood in the garden for a long while this afternoon, watching a carpenter bee patrol the salvia. He was bigger than the blossoms and seemed black all over; maybe it was the light but I didn’t see any yellow on him. He inspected the bougainvillea and rejected it; same with the daisies. But the salvia pleased him. I counted how long he sipped at each small blossom: one, two, three—quick as that, no Mississippis.
Then the hummingbirds began to chitter and scold from the tops of the neighbor’s pepper trees. They’re like squirrels, a bit cheeky, a bit cross. They live in a different tree, the one just behind our back fence. I don’t yet know what kind it is. Its ferny green leaves are obscured by fat orange pollen strands these days, so that the tree looks a little like autumn, all out of place in the springy garden.
I wanted to see more bees: bumble bees, honey bees. I’m deep into Fruitless Fall; it’s a nailbiter, I must say. Jane pinched it from me yesterday and stayed up late reading. This morning when she came out for breakfast, she was reading as she walked down the hall. “You look troubled,” I said, and she said, “I am. This book.” She finished it by lunchtime and now she wants to keep bees. That’s not an option where we live right now, but maybe someday. I noticed she was rereading the book later this afternoon. It’s that kind of book. I plan to get my hands back on it tomorrow.
In the garden, ants were streaming up and down the sunflowers. I tried to see what they were up to, but the baby was falling asleep in the sling just then and I had to keep moving. A dragonfly buzzed my head and lit on one of our beanpoles: breathtaking creature. Its cellophane wings seemed threaded and edged with copper wire. It liked that perch on top of the pole. Five times it flew away and returned to the same spot. I went in for the camera and it was still there, sunning, the gypsy breeze blowing its wings a little the wrong way, backward toward the huge fly eyes. The copper wings gleamed. It looked like a piece of jewelry, not a live thing—and there it went, sailing over the wall.
You’re a figment of my imagination, I thought, a fairy. But the camera says otherwise. Still, I know what I know.
bees, dragonflies, Fruitless Fall, hummingbirds
April 30, 2009 @ 6:22 pm | Filed under: Nature Study
…hummingbirds!
Caught this sweet little fellow enjoying the spray of our bird fountain. The video is jerky because I had the baby in my arms while recording it, and I was shooting through a windowscreen lest I scare the little guy away, so please forgive the poor quality. I didn’t want to miss it!
September 12, 2008 @ 6:22 am | Filed under: Nature Study
I jotted down some notes at Bonny Glen Up Close the other day about the hummingbirds that are in love with our feeder. We think they are Anna’s Hummingbirds. (Someone please correct us if we’re wrong.) The one above is the male: emerald back, ruby throat. These next two photos show the female, more modestly attired in shimming green without the crimson ascot.
How we have marveled to see them perching on the feeder instead of hovering, wings aflutter! Besides their coloring, the reason we’re pretty sure they are Anna’s Hummingbirds is because they sing:
This bird is most often found singing a series of scratchy sounds, including a sharp “chee-chee-chee”, from a high perch. This is the only California hummer to sing a song. When moving between flowers they make a “chick” sound.
Our trio—we’ve counted two females and a male at once—are quite the musical bunch, chittering away all day. They seem to live in a tree right behind our backyard fence. We’ve seen them perched on a branch there (more perching!) and zooming back and forth to our feeder.
Don’t be fooled by the female’s demure attire. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” Should a weary sparrow happen to pause on the feeder’s perch for a moment, she will fly in his face and scold him furiously.
Reminds me of someone else I know.
