Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Wednesday Vignette: Getting an early start

On a visit to Sherman Gardens in Corona Del Mar earlier this week, I discovered that a hummingbird was already nesting in a quiet corner of the garden.  A sign mounted by the garden staff warned visitors to keep their distance while she did her best to ignore the presence of an admiring public.

She was all business

and the very picture of patience


Does this mean Spring is just around the corner?  It feels like it here.  Our temperatures have climbed and other than some very light precipitation associated with heavy fog, we had no rain in January and currently the prospects for February aren't looking any better.

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.  I hope to be back with more photos from my trip to Sherman Gardens by the end of the week.


All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

22 comments:

  1. Amazing! We won't see hummingbirds here in NH until July - it's lovely to see this one already ensconced in her nest. Hope she can co-exist with the viewing public.

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    1. She seemed to be taking the public intrusions in stride on Monday so fingers crossed!

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  2. Sweet thing - I wish her great success!

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    1. I wish the garden kept a photographic record, or at least posted updates. I don't expect I'll get back there for a few months at best.

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    2. Maybe. I don't have an account on Facebook and haven't wanted to get sucked into that particular arena, although I do have an account on Instagram (now owned by Facebook) so I suppose I can check there.

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  3. Nothing finer than to see a hummingbird on its nest. How exciting. I have only seen one hummingbird nest ever.
    It almost feels like spring here toon weird. My DB was putzing around outside and came to tell me that one of our spirea shrubs was getting leaves! It is going tto be sorry. The leaves were popping out on the portion of the shrub that is under the Magnolia tree.

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    1. Spring suggests the end of the rainy season here so I rather hope we'll lapse back into winter mode for awhile. The rain predictions are decidedly iffy for the next month.

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  4. How sweet that is and what a treat to get to see it.
    I will gladly send you some of our rain. That's all we've had since Christmas. No snow, just dreary, damp rain.

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    1. I REALLY wish you could do that, Cindy! Mother Nature isn't at all even-handed.

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  5. What a lovely sight. I guess I hadn't thought of palm fronds being good for nesting on, but at that scale, I suppose anything is possible. I hope she gets the peace and quiet she needs for a successfully raising her family.

    Sorry you haven't had any rain for a while. The first part of January was awfully dry up here, but now we're in the middle of more than a week of constant, rather heavy rain. The garden is a veritable mud pit, and I'm dying to go outside and work in it, but erring on the side of comfy convenience. Wish I could share our bounty.

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    1. The weather pundits are undecided as to what the future holds for us in terms of rain, Anna. While I'm happy that we've already had much more rain than the year before last (6.44 inches vs. 3.8 inches), I'd like to see us end the rainy season with something closer to our historical average, which is just below 15 inches.

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  6. Love this. My grandmother had one nest in a vine over her front door. I remember being lifted up to see how tiny the eggs were. Gotta love these little miracles.

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    1. I've never found a nest here, although we had one for a short time at our old house, constructed in the worst possible spot on a Bougainvillea vine that moved up and down every time the garage door opened. The mother bird eventually relocated...

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    1. I wish I could find a nest in my own garden, Beth. My resident hummingbirds hang out in our peppermint willows (Agonis flexuosa) so there may be some too far above my head to be seen by me - or any predator.

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  8. Lucky you to find mama hummer and her nest. This must mean it's spring!

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    1. Spring does come early here but late January is really too early!

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  9. Bellissima immagine :) Fa strano vederla mentre qui è ancora inverno :D

    Buona serata e buon fine settimana!

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    1. For all practical purposes, we have just 2 seasons: a cool season and a warm (or hot!) one. We don't have a real winter like you do.

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