Who you callin' short???

You never want to offend a hummingbird ... never, ever. They take comments about their short stature very personally and have been known to attack given the slightest provocation. I mean, all I did was comment on the fact that his legs are short he can't even walk, and look what happened! (Pardon the literary license - hummingbirds actually never attack humans...)

Kidding aside, a little known fact about hummingbirds is that their legs are, in fact, so short that they are incapable of walking or even hopping. They either perch or they fly, nothing in between. And they can fly forwards, backwards, and sideways which kind of makes up for the no-walking thing.

P-Hummie, shown here at his feistiest best, has taken to perching on a branch on our deck with all 3 feeders and most of the flowers in sight. This gives him the ideal vantage point to attack chase Darth or any other males who might venture too close. Now that the wild honeysuckle is almost done blooming, our feeders have become much more popular.

By the way, last year on this day I blipped a female hummingbird!

The weather is horrid today! I awoke to temps of about 60 and by noon it was 48. Now the winds are gusting strong enough to rattle the shutters and we are having thunderstorms. What a yucky way to start a 3-day weekend! That also explains the ridiculously high ISO I had to use to get this shot - it's so dark and gloomy out that I had to crank the ISO to get any kind of decent shutter speed. (Yes, these are all excuses for a not-quite-crisp shot).

No sign of the chipmunks today - they are safely tucked into their burrows to weather out the storm. I left some peanuts on Mimsy's stoop, though ... I had thought I'd check on the chickadees babies today, but it's too cold and windy and wet to open the box. They are still half naked so mom and dad are taking turns in the nest box to keep them warm. The feeders are busier than usual today - probably because their are fewer insects readily available to snack on today.

Dinner tonight is one of my favorite springtime dishes - garlic scape pesto! I can only get the scapes in the spring, but it is worth seeking them out. There are only four ingredients to this simple sauce and it is excellent on pasta, fish, chicken or bread. We'll be having ours on a nice bowl of pasta tonight...

Another shot of P-Hummie, up close and personal before I sign off. Time to put my wooly slippers on, and a fleecy sweater...

xxoo
Debbi