Ombird

[randy_byers]

A fairly lackadaisical weekend it was. Hung out with my brother Friday night and Saturday morning, then spent the rest of the weekend procrastinating. Yesterday I hauled six gallons of water to the cedar tree in the traffic circle at the bottom of the hill, and I pulled a bale of weeds there too. Then I picked up my suit at Nordstrom's and watched half of the Mariners game at the Big Time. After this exhausting work I watched all six episodes of FLCL again, which I'll be writing about separately.

Around 8:30pm, I stepped out on the back porch to look at the garden in the gloaming. I planted an orange Chilean glory vine in the spring, and it has been blossoming the past couple of weeks, very pretty. And what did I see hovering by the flowers but a green hummingbird! (Well, it looked green in the half light, anyway.) The nursery tag had said that the plant would attract hummingbirds, but seeing is believing. I'd never seen a hummingbird in our yard before, so it was a real thrill. It dipped its beak into each flower, than flitted over to the raspberries, gave me a look, and vanished.

First a giant dragonfly, and now a green hummingbird. The backyard wildlife has been pretty danged cool this year.

Comments

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

The green hummingbird is Anna's hummingbird, fairly common around here. The other hummingbird you might see is the rufous hummingbird, which has a bright red chest.

Rufous was the hummingbird of my youth, hanging around my mother's coral bells. The last time I was in Ohio, my sister-in-law showed me the coral bells planted in her garden and told me they were my mother's, dug up from the yard of my youth and transplanted to my brother and sister-in-law's yard, where they looked considerably healthier and happier than they had in our yard. She says they are visited by hummingbirds there, too.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely story about the family coral bells! When I image-googled "hummingbirds in Seattle," one of the results was a page of photos and notes about Anna's hummingbird. It was confusing at first, because I thought that Anna must be a specific person, and these were her photos of hummingbirds. From the notes, I take it that I must have seen a female, because the male doesn't look very green.

[profgeek.livejournal.com]

Be grateful for your lovely yard with such wonderful flora and fauna. Down here it's the frigging monsoon season, and our backyard has been dubbed "Lake Purcell" and is ready for stocking with catfish. Not only that, but between our house and the neighbor's, my wife wants to plant rice in that pond and toss in some koi for added effect. We're not in the flood zone caused by the recent - and daily - heavy rains, but we still have a LOT of standing water around here. Count your blessings, Randy.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Hey, standing water should lead to mosquitos, and that should lead to dragonflies. Dragonflies are cool! But probably not as tasty as catfish and rice.