While working in the garden yesterday I was constantly distracted by our neighborhood hummingbird, the one I’ve been trying to get a decent picture of for over a year now. Of course, every time I had the camera he/she disappeared.
Today I decided to combine my meditation practice with picture taking. After about a half hour of quiet waiting he briefly showed up, too briefly to manage to get anything but a blurred image of him.
An hour later, he showed up again, and apparently reassured by my lack of motion, stuck around much longer, of course a minute in hummingbird time is probably equal to a day of our time. I’m not sure I know which shot I like best, but I found it interesting that he seemed to like this rather bland plant, not just the brilliant red one I first thought was attracting him:
Amazingly, I learned more about my little front yard in the hour I sat there attentively then I’d learned in the nearly two years I’ve lived here. First, there’s a crow’s nest right across the street with some very demanding young crowlings. There’s apparently a tit nest in the cedar tree in the front yard, judging from the busy adults that swoop in and out regularly. The brilliant yellow butterfly whose picture has also eluded me lo these many years, stops by, or almost stops by, irregularly.
It’s amazing what you can see and hear when you actually manage to stand still for just a little while.