h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My upstairs neigbor gets to see the aerial acrobatics of most of the hummingbird territory squabbles that happen over my feeder. They are agressive and persistend chirpers in addition to their three dimensional jinks and yaws, so they arc high chirp warningly at his level, and then swoop down on who they would challenge (usually taking to long of a turn at the 'bar', as I sometime call my feeder). He was talking to me about how there seemed to be a lack of hummers around lately, and how he hadn't seen nor heard hide nor hair.

I thought about it and had to agree! Even though the feeder I have is nestled between a honeysuckle and a jasmine, both quite tasty plants for hummers, I hadn't seen or heard much out of my side (glass) door for the last month. Careful observation after showed me that there was at least one around, a female who had bravely taken up residence in the nerium oleander next door. Since they're a good ol' boy C&W band, and still almost-teenagers (still having the energy to yell & scream at each other over nothing), she had to put up with quite a ruckus.

(Previously, there was a hummingbird in the avocado in the depths of their backyard, one that came in over the roof from the Children's Academy. where they must have a feeder, and another who lives across and up the way in a row of jacaranda mimosifolia which line the street)

Well, today I found out why. A wobbly teeny tiny version of her, totally oblivious to the sounds of me in the back of my border by the passiflora, parked herself on the feeder and had a good, long, oblivious drink. She was mere inches away, while I had never been allowed closer than a half meter by her wilder mom. Maybe the country tune I was humming (hee!) reminded her of home, just 20 feet away.

My cats are indoors only, so she won't learn that lesson in caution here.

Ooh! You're living in Paradise! Wanna swap? We get some really nice rain here, and cows and things. You'd love it.

She (never developed a glistening gorget, so my guess a month ago was correct) seems to have found her own new territory or gotten kicked out of this one by Mom. There once again is a bit of activity around the bar, but still not as much as there was early spring.

Nice to see ththe hummingbird activity has picked up a bit. I'm still jealous about the avocados and jacarandas.

I've been watching the fledgeling jackdaws learning to fly from their nests in the chestnut trees down at the Bible Garden. They were looking so nervous on the first day, like they couldn't quite figure out where their wings were supposed to go. Landing seemed especially tricky: they'd aim at a twig and overshoot, and have to land a few twigs along.

On the second day it was windy, and they looked thoroughly bewildered at the fact that every time they took to the air and flapped, they went backward instead of forward.

I've collected a handful of their feathers, because jackdaws smell so nice: lemony and spicy.

What an interesting looking bird a jackdaw is. Are they iridescent like a starling can be? I used to live near a fancy pigeon breeder, and you could find some strange & beautiful feathers blowing around & about her yard.



I have discovered (or imagine well) that she still visits. Among the other hummers currently visiting the feeder, she will still allow me to approach quite closely. Also out of all of them, she still wobbles a bit as she sucks, as if she were using her whole body to eat, although she is more coordinated now.

I now have salvia coccinea in full bloom, which attracts bumblebees. The female hummers don't argue as loudly with them over eating rights as the males do. Neither one seems to go for any passionflowers. My honeysuckle (the french halls 'improved' v.) is blooming first year, but only off in the shaded corner, so I haven't seen any critter go for it yet.

Last year I really got a regular visitation of wasps that prey on the butterfly caterpillars that eat on the passionvines, but neither they or the butterflies have appeared in any number so far this summer.

And yes, few things beat a fresh avocado, except with the same with freshly picked/squeezed lemon juice on it.

"Are they iridescent like a starling can be?"

Yes--blues and purples, mostly. They are glorious in the sunshine. I love the way that members of the crow family walk, too: a dignified stalk, like clerics with their hands behind their backs.

"strange & beautiful feathers"

I find it hard to resist feathers. I frequently pick 'em up on my little strolls.

"I now have salvia coccinea in full bloom"

That's a kind of sage, isn't it? You must have a very sweet-smelling garden.

I didn't know that hummingbirds argue with the bees. What a beautiful mental picture!

"wasps that prey on the butterfly caterpillars"

The ones that lay their eggs in the caterpillars?

"few things beat a fresh avocado"

Ohhh.... How you tease me.

The fledgeling hummingbird (well, she's about 9 months old now) who was raised in the neigbor's driveway Nerium Oleander is taking advantage of the fact that I am out in the yard to come back to her home territory's feeder (in my garden) from where she lives now across the street. The current owner, a male who won the spot by being more-precisely-acrobatic than pugnacious and hostile, is more wary of me than she is. She lets him chase her in, and then sucks away as he hovers a foot above my head, chirping madly and trying to decide which of us to attack first. By the time he decides, she has had her fill and zips away. He knows closing the barn door is futile, so he only follows her out half-heartedly for the pro forma of it.



For some reason I missed that you had responded to me on this entry?!

Yes, my neighbors used to be big smokers, and I like fresh air and am too stubborn to close my windows when the weather is nice (almost all the time). Therefore I grow lots of fragrant stuff. Currently perfuming (or choking, as to your preference) is a mix of honeysuckle and jasminum azoricum. S. coccinium is a sage, but it is not very fragrant, mostly I grow it because it's pretty and stubborn and reseeds itself everywhere. I am meaning to get a S. clevelandii soon.

Yes, the wasps really do lay their eggs in the caterpillars. I discovered this year that the limiting factor on this whole war is not the relative ascendancy of wasp or butterfly populations, but is based on the minimum night temperature. Below 50F or so, my vines simply can't produce enough leaves, and when they do, they don't seem to be able to produce enough natural insecticide so new leaflets get devoured instanter. Good ol' Bacteria Thuringiensis to the rescue!

Bumblebees are more accustomed to hovering for long periods of time and are more capable of holding their own against a hummingbird. Regular bees have to be in a group of three or so, otherwise they tend to lose out or get blown away.

Hello there, you lovely person.

Just letting you know I'm not ignoring you, but my computer time's a bit limited at the mo. I'll talk to you properly soon, I hope.

See ya.

It's great reading about the behaviour all the organisms living around you. You write evocatively, and with character. It takes me away from my damp, grey, windswept surroundings for a while....

In my damp, grey, windswept garden the other day, I found some arthropods living in a sheltered crevice. There were two yellow and grey ones, and a black and red one. They were tiny--maybe a millimetre across. Really bizarre-looking critters. I thought I'd discovered a new species, but then I found a section about them in one of my books. It turns out they were springtails. Here's a picture of one:

http://www.ent3.orst.edu/kgphoto/KGCode_Detail.cfm?ID=2539.

(It says they're insects, but technically, they're not.)

Cool critters.

I don't see much in the way of tiny no-see-ums because I am usually too vain to wear my glasses. I know I've got some jumping spiders and argentine ants outside my side door. Because I've got Monstera and Coleus in the front garden it needs to be kept quite moist, and so I've got every kind of slug and snail in the world rasping away down there. There are so many right now, I bet if the rain wasn't so noisy, you could go out at night and hear the envelope of the sounds of molluscid digestion.

I forgot to say that, if you give a springtail a prod, it spangs up into the air and bounces off your nose. I couldn't believe how high they jumped. I prodded 'em several times, just to make sure.

I hate my glasses. I only wear them when I really have to. And I lose them frequently. The people who design glasses need to be lined up against a wall and shot.

Jumping spiders, now, they are nice. They've got endearing eyes. Sort of like they're thinking, "duh... huh?"

http://duggan-family.org/lyman/jumping-spider/

Gastropods aren't half noisy eaters. In my study in the evening, I hear my African landsnails rasping away behind me like... loud raspy things. And if one loses its suction power and skids down the glass, the squeak can be heard from all the way downstairs.

Gorgeous picture of the jumper. The california ones are less hairy, more of a chocolate brown, and they are striped with thin band of black on their legs and tan on their back. I dunno what that the size of that leaf is like in real life, but our jumpers are about pinkie fingernail sized at most.

Apparently, that spider's about 12mm. The ones down our way look very much like it, except they're stripey and the size of about *half* a pinkie fingernail. I like the way they twitch their pedipalps like sassy feather boas.

...Not that I'm girly or anything. Perish the thought.

Me, I like the tickly feel as they zip across your hand in .5cm increments, then stop, then zip again.