Monday, March 5, 2012

In Which Gus Comes To Visit And Takes Me To Task

Last night Connor stayed up until almost four in the morning, which was not nearly as delightful for me as it sounds.  No word on the night nurse program yet-- it can't happen soon enough as far as I'm concerned!

So I ended up getting about two hours of sleep, which did not combine very well with the whole still-getting-over-being-sick thing.  However, even in my half-delirious state I couldn't ignore Gus when I got home from picking Connor up from school.

Gus is the male Anna's hummingbird who lives somewhere nearby our house and visits us year round.  He's a cheeky, impatient little thing who considers our yard his personal property, and he's been known to eat out of our feeder while I'm still holding on to it.  When he's not flitting about the place keeping our yard bug free (hummingbirds eat a lot of bugs) he likes to hang out on top of one of our flowering cherry trees, where he has a good view of his whole territory. 

With the crazy winter we've had as far as Connor's health goes (today was not exception-- he had three seizures), I've been falling down on the job of filling up our hummingbird feeder-- it's been empty for several weeks.  Now we have other neighbors who feed the hummingbirds too and Gus is a little butterball, so I know he's getting more than enough food.  Gus apparently wasn't thrilled with my job performance however, so he decided to give me a piece of his mind this morning.  When I got Connor out of the van and was standing there waiting for the door to close, I heard his characteristic grouchy cheeping at top volume coming from his usual perch.  Gus doesn't sing, he pontificates at length.  When I ignored him and headed for the door, he decided he wasn't getting his point across.  So he dive-bombed me and buzzed my head. 

A word to the wise-- hummingbirds are very cute at a distance.  Hummingbirds chattering angrily at you while hovering six inches from your eyes are very cute but also kind of terrifying.  Also their wings are loud.

So I refilled the feeder.  He's got me well trained.

~Jess

2 comments:

MFA Mama said...

Okay, that is more than a little hilarious! My father, who was a boxer in the Navy and all-around tough guy, used to be deathly--DEATHLY--afraid of hummingbirds. It always tickled me to no end; he would never back down from another human being and bore many an unpleasant medical procedure with barely a flinch, but the moment a bird the size of a large bumblebee was in his face with the wings buzzing he was a complete and total chicken. Gus could've chased him around the block, haha!

Jennifer Jayhawk said...

That is funny. I had no idea hummingbirds would interact in that way.
Hope you get some sleep!!!

 
Blog Directory