Another Day & A Few Things

For the past 4 years, during the spring and summertime, around sundown and just under the corner of either my carport or front porch, a small dark brown spot shows up in one of the corners. And it stays all night long until the sun starts to come up. How he stays comfy on that tiny ledge I will never know. For the first year or 2 there were always 2 of them, figured it was a pair, and they stayed in the same corner snuggled up together, but one of them vanished one year and this little fella just kept coming back.
I remember one night going outside to take Dixie out to potty and there were 4 of them out there, taking up corners. I was starting to think that he was telling the whole population about my carport hehee, but I wanted to share about my little bird. I feel special that he feels safe enough to come stay in my carport every night.

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And yesterday was one of the neatest experiences I have had with my hummingbirds. A friend and I were sitting outside watching the birds come and go to the feeder as it had rained for like one minute out there but cooled it off to 78 and it was really nice out for a change. The hummingbirds were all chasing each other because they didnt want to share the feeder (which I dont understand since there are 8 holes on it so plenty of room for the 4 that come around LOL). Well Im sitting up on the porch in my rocking chair and suddenly one of the females scoots up to the railing right in front of me and hovers there peeking over the railing at me....then all of a sudden, she pops up over the top and sits down on the railing right there by me just sitting there looking at me. I dont know how long she would have stayed there if one of the others hadnt of come up there and chased her off. Then not even about 5 minutes later, she comes up again and sits on the railing, but the male came along and chased her off. I didnt have my camera ready but I know if I had, just moving it to try and get a picture of her that close she would have taken off.
But knowing that she will get that close to me know, I am considering putting the feeder up on the edge of the railing there one day and keeping the camera fixed on the feeder and see if they will come up there and eat and try to get some really close up pictures of them. If I am able to get some I will definitely post them.

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And lastly, my Dixie gave me the scare of my life yesterday. As you can see by her bio on the right here, she is 15 years old. She has bad arthritis and is on a steroid shot for it that helps some but she still has it, and then she's losing her hearing and all. Well anyway, when I took her outside to potty yesterday around lunch time, she didnt want to come back in, so I figured ok I'll leave her out here for about 20-30 minutes so she can roll in the grass and lay in the sun, since she's getting a bath today anyway. she likes to stay out there for a few minutes like that sometimes, and never had a problem before.
Well, about 25 minutes later or so I go back out there to get her...and she's gone. My heart just sinks. Times when she has wondered off, she has gone straight for the busy street down at the end. So I just knew I was going to find her dead with it being lunch hour rush. I walked down there first calling her name hoping she would come out from behind a shrub or something, but didnt see her and luckily she wasnt hadnt been hit that I could see. So i came back to the house and called my neighbor all upset about it all, and scared her cuz I said "Dixie's gone" and had her thinking Dixie had died instead of disappearing, but she was kind enough to be going out to help me look.
I grabbed my keys and headed out in the car, got to the end of my street at the busy road, and had dialed animal control to see if they had gotten her. And I look up and across the busy 4 lane street just in time to see her in someone's yard. I was so relieved to see her alive, I hung up with animal control and flew across that street to get her. I think she thought i was mad at her because she didnt want to come to me, so I had to talk baby talk to her. But i wasnt mad, I was terrified and relieved all in one. I got her in the car and back home safe. I was so scared I tell ya....I think some of my life span vanished just in those short 10 minutes I couldnt find her.

Well thats about it for today, Im hoping that something exciting will happen with my birds at least outside and hoping to get to the park one day to see whats going on with the critters there. And keep your fingers crossed that I can get some better close up pictures of the hummingbirds :)