I wonder how many of us, in our wanderings, just pass by things without ever noticing them.
I was working on something in the yard and decided to take a break. I looked over into the garden thru the fence, to see if anything new had bloomed out and something on the fence caught my eye. It looked like a twig and I was about to knock it off the fence, but something stilled my hand. What was it about this twig that caught my eye? Then it moved. HAH, it was a walking stick. I'd never seen on up close like this before and after that one movement, it froze again. I waited to see if it would move and of course it didn't, so I shook the fence a little and it spread it's front legs a little. Once the shaking stopped, it froze again.
Break time over, I realized I needed to get into the garden to finish up my task. In order to do this, I was going to have to move the fence and this little guy was going to go flying off somewhere. So I figured it would be nice to move him to a spot, he'd be a little safer in, and by that, I mean safe from me.
There's a good sized bush growing wild next to the fence, so I moved him there. He seemed to wave one of his arms at me, as if to say thanks. Either that, or he was cursing me out for moving him to a spot he had no desire to be in. (shrug)
Making my way into the jungle that was once a garden, I almosted walked right into a spider's web. This spider had made it's web from the fence to one of the cherry tree saplings that my daughter gave me, and also had a web set up on the fence. That's where I spotted it. It was a really fat spider, I've never seen one so round before. It looked like an ingorged tick or something, it was so round.
I tried to see if it would stretch out a bit more and wiggled the fence, but it didn't move a bit. Oh well, onward into the jungle.
Just a few steps away was another spider. This one was more like the garden spiders I was used to seeing, only it was curled up. I took a few pictures of it, hoping it would move, but it didn't, so once again, I shook the fence and it shot up into the leaves. Great. Not sure if you can make it out tucked up in the leaf house it seemed to have made for itself. Smart spider.
The last small subject I came across on my way out of the garden. I went to move a branch out of the way and saw something orange in all the green. Taking a closer look I saw this...
There are so many little things out there that go without being seen. Good for them I guess. I'm trying to make it a point to be a little more observant so as not to miss anything. Who knows what I'll see next summer. :)
I'll always remember the first time I actually saw one up close. I was on vacation in San Diego and had a terrace off the bedroom. The view of the golf course was blocked by this amazing tree, full of deep pink flowers in the shape of trumpets.
I was standing within reaching distance of the tree when this hummingbird flew right in front of me. It startled me just a bit, I thought it was a big bug. When I realized what it was, I could only stare at it and wonder at it's tiny size and beautiful colors that changed as it moved. Like a flying rainbow.
It gave me a glance and went to the business of feeding. I watched for a few min. as it went flower to flower, never farther away than I could reach. So I did just that. I put out my finger and it actually landed and fed while resting on my finger. I could barely feel it's weight. When it finsihed with that flower, it buzzed over to another, my finger followed and it rested. We did this for about half an hour, the bird either got tired of me or had had enough and left.
That happended years ago, so imagine my surprise to see them in my yard buzzing around the flowers. I immediately got some feeders for them and now have more hummingbirds visiting than I know what to do with. They're skittish and won't land on my outstretched hand. They actually just calmed down enough to allow me to take pictures of them.
The next group of photos show a clash of tiny titans! A yellow jacket and a hummingbird at the feeders always causes a stir. In this set, the bee is actually chasing the bird.
They're a bit fuzzy, but the hummingbird wanted no parts of that bee and buzzed around the feeder so fast. I think they finally settled on being out of sight of each other. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. :) They stayed on opposite sides of the feeder and there was peace, although the hummingbird kept an eye out for the bee in case it tried anything.
