Wild Weather

We had some wild weather yesterday which I happened to get caught in while driving home on I-5 from a doctor visit. We had torrential rain, wind, thunder, lightning and HAIL. It was not fun driving in that. We so seldom get thunder and lightning that it was kind of a shock. A transformer on Queen Anne apparently got struck and knocked out power there and a man in Snohomish got struck - he is fine but it knocked him 7' away from his truck. Pretty scary stuff. We have also broken the record for the most rain ever recorded in a single month. Whoopee.

And it's still raining. In fact I went out today and cleaned bird feeders in the rain. They are a mess with all this rain. I hope the birds and squirrels appreciate all my dedication and hard work! The hummingbirds seem to, anyway. One of them just flew up to the window and hovered there for a moment looking at me - maybe he was looking for the window feeder I used to have there, but I like to think he was thanking me for a nice clean, newly filled feeder!

This feeder is one that I bought at WalMart a couple of years ago at an "end-of-summer" sale. I paid a whole $1.50 for it. I actually bought two of them. I have several other hummingbird feeders that are a lot nicer and that I paid a lot more money for, but for some reason the hummers prefer these two over all the others. I don't know why, though. I have never figured it out. But, because they are cheaply made, they have weird "flowers" and one of them is missing.

The replacements that you can buy for hummingbird feeders do not fit these feeders (because they are so cheaply made) and so that hole has been just an open hole for quite a while. It turns out that is the hummer's favorite feeding place. But the bees also love it because they can get right into the feeder that way.  So this past summer, it has been quite a war over that particular spot. But the bees are gone now and the squirrels broke one of those feeders, so this morning I discarded the one with the broken flower and I put out one of the fancy feeders in its place, one hummer tried it out, but hasn't returned to it. They still prefer the WalMart special.

• Posted at Wednesday, November 22, 2006 07:28 PM
• In General Category | Permalink