One morning while the kids were here, daughter-in-law spotted a hummingbird. I though she was mistaken at first because we hadn’t seen one yet. We don’t have the feeder as out it became rather nasty sitting out over the summer and I’m not sure it’s properly cleaned or if it needs to be replaced. Anyway, she was correct and we all saw it (less Hubby who was teaching). The thing is though, that was the only time. We are still somewhat puzzled as to why the neighborhood barely a mile away has hummingbirds year-round and at least up until now, we have only the migratory ones Nov-April. Last year, the two we had actually spent as much time in the front yard as in back so we didn’t see them very often.

We do have lots of butterflies and bees as the flowering shrubs in back are densely planted and now do overlap with each other to make pretty much a continuing stretch along the back fence. I still don’t know the name of all of them, but we have the Chocolate Raspberry which are kind of a trumpet type blossom, the giant milkweed which has grown very large, then some kind of red blossom – there may actually be two different kinds, and a yellow one. There will be times when we have as many as half-a dozen butterflies flitting about and always a few. They are predominantly the zebras, monarchs, a small yellow I don’t know the name of, and three or four other varieties. The bees are constant throughout much of the day. Granddaughter was a little concerned and we explained they were just there to gather pollen and wouldn’t try to sting.

We will keep close watch for the humming bird and we do still have the flock of green parrots that come over about once a day as they roam between neighborhoods. We usually have two or three at a time and occasionally as many as a dozen. Even if we don’t happen to see them because of the angle they are at, they are easy to hear.