The jewelweeds

Now that Strawberry Fields is fenced off it's necessary to search out hummers in other jewelweed plots. I've been doing some calculating. If the north lawn of Strawberry Field is closed from now till May that's not a space for people to enjoy. That's more than half a year of nothing space. Something is very wrong with this thinking.


There's lots of jewelweed and as long as it's in blossom there will be weed eaters. In amongst the wild vines are the down-eaters, the grosbeaks. The first one I saw was at the Upper Lobe mostly hidden. Obviously this bird had been eating red berries before getting to the jewelweed.

Yummy seeds. The warblers also go after these seeds and the bugs that are in the space.

Yesterday there was a good group of hummers with one primary female who perched a lot in one tree, oversaw the space. Any competition was chased away as if thousands of blossoms would not be enough for one hummer. The aerial acrobatics created lots of smiles, spontaneous exclamations of joy.

This is the "supervisor"........ perched, preening.

Time for food.

Cleaning beak....... not playing fife.

I've tried to edit tightly from a take of over 900 pictures. Needless to say, more to follow.

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