Summer Hummer

One of the joys of working from home is getting to spend some time outdoors while working. My outdoor workspace is sheltered on three sides, under an umbrella. Two of the three walls surrounding my tabletop are lined with plants, bringing me closer to a garden office. 

This summer, the one of the best experiences has been the regular visits from the summer hummingbirds. 

They’ve trained me to stop everything when they appear. (I’ve been caught, mouth agape and blinking at the tiny creature just in front of my face – although off camera.) 

The typical route is coming over the back fence to the wisteria, and now that those blooms are gone, they zip to the honeysuckle. I can spot them when the blooms start bobbing. From honeysuckle, it’s off to the trumpet vine anchoring the corner of the house and yard. Again, bright orange tubes bounce with each visit. 

With this year’s profusion of trumpet vine flowers, it takes them a while at that stop. They will pause at the herb and vegetable garden, but not usually for long, before coming to visit my corner. 

Here they find showy, hallucinatory blooms of hibiscus – yellow merging to orange to red or orange-rimmed and pink-orange blooms with deep red center, a beacon for the tiny hummers. 

And from here, they make a quick jaunt to the rose bush and mandevilla next to my table. 

Nearly every time, one will pause at eye level to me: hovering, examining, calculating. I stare back with the same curiosity, sometimes for as much as 30 seconds. If I try to capture the moment with my cellphone camera, I inevitably break the spell and the hummer zips away. I’ve never caught even a blur a of a hummer in my camera. 

So rather than bring this bit of technology between us, I capture the moment in my memory, as impermanent as that is. It is an experience, to be trained by a hummer. I’m learning.   

These brilliant hummingbird photos, taken near Palm Springs, CA, are provided by my brother.