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THE HUMMINGBIRDS THAT GOT AWAY
I thought it would be exciting to start my blog with a photo of humming birds in their nest. Our walkway is a hummingbird magnet. The birds love building nests in our podocarpus trees. The spot is secluded, no cats, dogs or other varmints. Maybe a mole but they don’t climb, I think. So, there was the bird resting so peacefully in her sweet nest. Thinking I could be a conscientious mother bird and help, I placed left over threads from knitting and wholesome wheat bread crumbs all around the base of the trees. But nothing was eaten or taken, I just made a mess. It was then I googled "what do hummingbirds eat?" Spider webs, and nectar from flowers. Who knew? Nothing I could produce for a hummingbird. Also, discovered that humming birds bring luck, in fact, Aztecs believed the god of "music and poetry took the form of a hummingbird and went into the "underworld to make love to a goddess, who then gave birth to the first flower." Now we're talking freaky. You see the birds are right outside my painting studio! What do I paint? Yep, flowers. Start off the blog with a photo of the hummingbird in its nest. Got out the ladder, camera, etc. Climbed up making sure I was close enough, still being very quiet, took the photo, beautiful one, bam, the hummingbird immediately flew away, never to return. Does that mean this blog will fail or everyone who reads this will runaway?
Well, the birds must have told their friends about this neat place, because soon we saw another bird building a nest on our walkway. This time, no photos, no bread, no string, nada.
My painting studio is off the walkway to the front door of our house. Usually the door is open for added ventilation. I preferr the fresh air to the fans in the studio. So I have the door and the windows open.
What happens is that I do get air, but I also get birds, lizards and spiders, oh my. They think this is a little quiet park and they fly, crawl or squiggle in. Once in, they proceed to try and find a way out by flying blindly through plate glass windows that look out to the gardenia trees and lush ferns. The lizards crawl under low filling cabinets never to be rescued, but I know they are there, somewhere. Now, I’m terribly afraid of flying squiggly things, thus an emergency call goes out to my husband to help me corral all of the varmints that want to play in the studio. He holds a broom and gently places it next to the bird with the hopes said bird will alight onto the broom, all the while speaking to them in a loving reassuring tone so that they'll trust him and be grandly carried out to the great outdoors. This works most of the time. But sometimes it doesn’t and I am devastated. The lizards, I sometimes hear scratching on the floor like little bird feet ghosts and it’s really creepy because I can’t find them. But they're there, really there.
