Friday, July 10, 2009

Hummingbirds and crocosima

We have a bumper crop of hummingbirds this summer in Seattle. I don't keep a sugar feeder up, so they have to forage in our yard for hummingbird health food-- their favorite being the big red crocosima that is just starting to bloom. They like crocosima so much they don't bother with the hover/sip method, but sit right on the flower and DRINK like sailors at a bar. I wish I had a photo to show you, but I don't have the time or patience to lay in the flower bed all afternoon. (Some Saturday when John is underfoot, I might ask him to do this with his fancy new camera. :-)

I like Davesgarden.com but he says beautiful crocosima can become a noxious weed. Really?? That's kind of like saying hummingbirds are an invasive species.


This is hard to imagine too, but there's been serious war between the hummingbirds and our free-loader crows. We hear the brave (or mean?) little things clicking and dive bombing the crows on the wires and even in flight. They must really despise the crows to expend all that sugar energy tormenting them-- and the feeling is mutual, I'm sure.

No comments:

Post a Comment