Soft sunlight and the scent of autumn leaf-mould. Two female hummingbirds visit the jewelweed together and leave together, but seem quite competitive around the flowers: a mother trying to distance herself from a fledged offspring, I suppose.
jewelweed
Again I am the object of a hummingbird’s intense study from three feet away, this time for nearly a minute. Then she’s off to the back of the house and the banks of orange jewelweed there.
Cool and breezy, with everything damp from another rainy night. An indigo bunting sings a few bars and falls silent. An jewelweed stalk still sways from a hummingbird’s visit.
Dawn thunderstorm moving off by sunrise, which a single crow heralds from the dead top of a locust. The first hummingbird arrives at the jewelweed before the rain has quite stopped. Another storm rumbles in the west.
Cool and still, with a white sky and feeble sun. The jewelweed in the dripline of the porch has grown tall enough that I can see as well as hear the occasional hummingbird visitor, sipping nectar from bright orange goblets. At the other end of the yard, all the lilac leaves are turning brown.
Clear and cool—the first morning of a dry high. A hummingbird visits the orange jewelweed below the porch. A pungent, camphor-like odor makes me think of blossoming yarrow, but I finally decide instead it’s coming from the black locust limbs smashed down in a storm more than a week ago.
Cool and clearing. Dew drips from the porch roof onto the orange jewelweed, which this morning for the first time receives no visits from a hummingbird.
In the wake of a quick hummingbird with her elegant wand, a bumblebee continues to work the jewelweed, clambering up into each orange throat.
Overcast and breezy. The orange jewelweed below the porch has grown so tall, I can actually see the hummingbird visiting the topmost blossoms now—the green blur of her wings, the dew slicking her bill.
Sunrise reddens the western ridge as the flat-tire moon fades, alone in the sky. Jewelweed flowers along the stream nod and sway as the first hummingbird makes her rounds.
Overcast and damp. A hummingbird visits the jewelweed growing in the drip line from the roof, which still drips from a shower at dawn. A wood thrush sings.
Out before sunrise to catch the coolness, I rub a jewelweed poulice against a small poison ivy rash on my middle finger, feeling the itch subside and contemplating the yard, where poison ivy and jewelweed freely intermingle.
Breezy and a bit less humid. A low buzz below the porch, where orange jewelweed attracts a ruby-throated hummingbird. A low rumble from my own stomach.
Clear and cold. I hear a hummingbird below the porch, buzzing from one orange jewelweed goblet to the next. The sun must be up.