Saturday, May 20, 2006

Enjoying the evening

This evening I was able to enjoy the porch and the hummingbirds without planning, in the back of my mind, the next measurement, the next board I need. I just sat some and gardened some, drank some excellent coffee and watched the sprinkler. It's very dry and no rain in sight.

We matched a record high today of 97. It's forecast to be in the mid 90's all week with lows in the upper 60's. Ouch!

I have at least 2 male and 2 female ruby throated hummers who frequent my yard. The males seem a little shorter and thicker than the females who seem a little longer and sleeker. I watched earlier in the week as a male did his aerobic flight pattern for the female. I think it's a mating dance. I had read that and forgotten about it until I saw the dance. Perhaps the show I described earlier about the two males flying in and out of the redbud tree really involved only one bird, doing his dance. If so, he was flying through the tree, back and forth and looked like two different birds. Amazing.

I don't know that I could ever get to the point that the hummers are commonplace to me. I am able now to follow them from branch to branch because they tend to go to the same spots in the trees to perch and preen, always keeping an eye on the feeder in case another little bird tries to feed. Rarely do I see two birds on the feeder at the same time but today I saw that once. I couldn't tell if it was a male and a female or 2 females. I think it was the former. I can't imagine 2 males feeding at the same time. They are so stingy about the feeder!

Tomorrow I am going to start thinking about the porch roof. I have done a vague preliminary measurement and it looks like I can have a 7 foot high roof at the proch's edge by attaching the rafters to a header fastened to the house with lag screws right under where the house roof overhang is. I think the porch roof pitch will be enough and won't look too strange compared to the house roof pitch. The roof will definitely be a challenge. I'll keep you posted.

1 comment:

oklahoma exile said...

Excellent points, Zebra!