Waiting

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It’s been a week or so since I last saw a hummingbird in my garden. Perhaps I haven’t been out at the right time or maybe Ms. Hummer isn’t around at the moment.  She’s probably a nesting female, busily tending her little ones somewhere nearby.

When I last observed, there were two hummers: two females, pursuing one another from Turk’s cap blossoms to Mexican orchid tree blooms, with a quick turn about the sunflowers.  Continuing the chase, they zoomed off, heading away from my garden.  Now, I’m waiting to see either one, or both, again.

Not long ago, I bumbled out the door while Ms Hummer was slurping at the salmon blooms of the Red yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora.  She darted up and settled onto the Desert willow, Chilopsis linearis, whose foliage is lacy over the front garden.

She rested, alert but relaxed, waiting for me to exit the area.   I snapped some shots while she posed prettily.  She eventually grew tired of my presence and sped to another place, presumably where no one was taking her photo.

This begins the time of year when the hummingbirds are most active in my garden.   No doubt, I’ll see the females again, but I’ll also begin seeing the males, especially in August and September, as they prepare for their journey south.

To garden with wildlife is all about waiting:  waiting for the right moment to feed, to forage, to observe, to photograph.

I’m pleased to join again with Anna and her Wednesday Vignette.   Check out her blog, Flutter and Hum, for musings of various sorts.

 

21 thoughts on “Waiting”

    • That’s a nice dream! Yes, I love the Texas native plants, though my back garden is increasingly shady due to, ahem, two large native Texas red oaks. 🙂

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  3. Dealing with nature on any level often is a matter of waiting — we’re waiting to see whether/when 92L will turn into Barry and pay us a visit. I’d much rather be waiting for the appearance of a hummingbird! I was interesting to see that you have desert willow, too. A friend in the hill country’s been waiting to see if hers would come back from this year’s freezes. Unfortunately, the answer to that one’s “No!”

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    • Oh, yes, I noticed the weather map and a possible tropical storm. Sheesh, it feels early, but I guess it isn’t. We just keep getting rain, at least once/week. Quite frankly, I’m a bit tired of it and its resultant mosquitoes.

      My desert willow is about 20 years old and probably in decline, but it still produces blooms–way up high–that the pollinators love! And it produces a nice fragrance at night and early in the morning that I like.

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  8. I’ve been feeding hummers for many years now, but it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve noticed a lull in the action at the feeder(retirement will do that to you… lots of couch time at the window.)
    But I haven’t been watching long enough to determine a pattern – judging from the comments on your post, I think I can safely say that they are not gone, they are just otherwise occupied. As a matter of fact, after 5 or 6 days of nothing, I noted a male doing his mating loops this afternoon. Thank goodness. I was afraid that something was going on in the hummingbird world. Something like with the pollinators that seem to be MIA, as well.

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