So this weekend we had a good day of rain, and on Monday we had a downpour. The results are: clean streets, clean trees, clean air (temporarily), and a gorgeous accumulation of snow on the mountains to the east.
I like rain, and I wish we got some every month - I miss thunderstorms! - but the six-week winter period when Los Angeles gets most of its precipitation has come to be a slightly anxious time for me. Not because I have to drive in it (thank heaven) but because of those silly hummingbirds.
Last year a lady hummer built her nest in the middle of winter. It was absolutely the wrong time to build a nest and try to hatch chicks. She managed to fledge at least one, but there were days when I turned on our patio heat lamp for her, because it was so cold out there. You have never seen anything quite so pathetic as a two-inch bird huddled down in a golf-ball nest with big drops of 50-degree rain thumping her on her head.
I am hoping the little nitwit does not repeat this performance. Saturday, during the morning showers, I saw one of the female hummers perched in the ficus tree and just thought "don't do it."
The Anna's hummingbirds, which are the most frequent visitors to my patio garden and drive-through, do not ordinarily migrate from our latitude. They are, ostensibly, adapted to the weather. We have year-round natural food sources, and a patio like mine is kind of an ideal sheltering spot because not only do I have the feeders, I have cover; it's situated in such a way as to discourage incursions by predators like rats or crows; and there are old mangey trees nearby that are loaded with spiders and other little bugs, providing good food and nest material. And I know that wild birds are a lot tougher than they, in their tiny feathery cuteness, appear. But still. Wait at least till March, okay?
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