EXCITING STUFF

Billions of people read this blog, but I suspect only a couple will understand this post.

Like a few other nuts, I spend too much time watching birds. Over the years a few peope always have been doing this since the first caveman. These days we do it more expecting entertainment than a meal. Even the people who still shoot birds need to gain some understanding of them to be successful.

I watch birds. Watching birds has entertained me immensely for years. I have many hobbies, but I recommend this one to all. Actually, I suspect all do it to some degree. Like most things, some of us get too caught up in it. It is a harmless addition, not like a love for heroin, or Jackson.

My bride of many years has always supported my obsessions. If you spend enough time with me, they rub off on you no matter how hard you fight it. My bride is now an expert on the poor coaching of Clemson football, all things political, and bird study. So today when on a rare visit to my bird chair, she claimed to have seen a hummingbird, I knew it was true. If you had been here and said that, I would have “humored” you.

I go through so much sugar feeding Humming Birds that I am on the ATF watch list for moonshiners. Every year I write down when they show up, and when they leave. I do that for other birds too.

I adjust my HB feeders over the Summer as the need dictates, and keep one out all year because they are pleasant to look at, and you never know when one will be needed.

All my Hummingbirds leave around the middle of October.

One is here today, and that is very exciting! I have not gotten a good view of it yet, and sleeping will be hard tonight as I wait for morning. I just put out two more feeders, and moved a chair into a position that will hold me and the Beagle. I intended to paint the dock tomorrow, but that will have to wait. Me, the Beagle and my tiny camera will be on stakeout tomorrow. Stake outs used to be a dull part of my life waiting for criminals, but this is much more exciting, and I get to replace poor coffee with excellent beer.

Yea, I understand that ten days more or less on a bird sighting is not much to many, but I also understand it is very exciting to me! A couple years back, a Humming Bird spent an entire Winter with me. I don't know anyone around here who has had that good fortune.

YC

Comments

[TNRabbit]

Wow; how the heck did you get a HB to spend all winter without dying?

TNRabbit

[YC]

I know it does not sound right, but it is true. About 3 Winters ago a juvenile male Calliope showed up. At the time, it was only the second ever sighted in SC. It went through the Winter OK. Every morning I put out a feeder at sun rise. On really cold mornings, I had to rotate a fresh one out as they froze. It was a hell of Winter, and in the Spring, he left. I was quite the star among local birders while he was here though.
My arrival is a Rufus, and seems to have moved on.

"The smallest bird in North America, the Calliope Hummingbird inhabits mountain areas of the northwestern United States. It is the smallest long-distance avian migrant in the world, spending its winters in Mexico."