Feud’n Fuss’n and Fight’n

It’s been raining too hard here to get out on a real walk so far this week, so I’ve been stuck watching the hummingbird soap opera in my front garden.

This peaceful little Rufous Hummingbird has been trying to quietly sip a little nectar

Rufous Hummingbird

but seldom gets a chance because this Anna’s Hummingbird constantly dive bombs her, then sits on the highest branch, guarding her domain from all intruders,

Anna's Hummingbird

flying back and forth between the front and back garden to guard its domain.

8 thoughts on “Feud’n Fuss’n and Fight’n”

  1. Wow, not one, but two hummingbirds! Of different types! I envy you! I’ve only seen hummingbirds maybe 5 times in my whole life, most recently on a visit to San Francisco, in the middle of the city in one of those little parks that dot the neighborhoods. At first I thought it was a large insect, then realized what it was.

  2. Well, it obviously doesn’t agree with the Anna. The rufous is plump and cute, and the anna is ruffled and ragged!

  3. Right, kenju and I didn’t even choose just the right photo to convey that idea.

    Oh, yeah, maybe I did. Until I noticed that the Anna was being a real bully I think I only managed to get sweet, endearing shots.

  4. I’m pleasantly surprised at how often I find bird entusiast blogs when I’m not even looking for them. I was searching Kundera and kitsch when I happened upon a 2002 installment of “In a Dark Time”. Out of curiosity I clicked for the home page and found the blog still being kept up. And then the hummingbirds and green heron!

    In your comments preceding mine, Loren, we come full circle. Isn’t that third sentence of yours reflective of the kitsch discussion?

  5. If you mean that “The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch” I’d have to agree with your final comment, Michael.

    I doubt that anyone who didn’t love my bird pictures could be a real part of the brotherhood of man 🙂

  6. Loren,
    Actually I meant:
    “Until I noticed that the Anna was being a real bully I think I only managed to get sweet, endearing shots.”

    As instance of:
    “As soon as kitsch is recognized for the lie it is, it moves into the contest of non kitsch, thus losing its authoritarian power and becoming as touching as any other human weakness.”

    The second quote is from a blog entry of yours, as I said, from 2002, and it has some woman named Diane McCormick in it and then some guy who hurled his M.A. thesis at you. You may have found the right one but I noticed that Kundera is mentioned in multiple blog entries.

  7. Actually, I was teasing, Mike, and poking a little fun at myself.

    I did look back at that entry, and the line I quote also comes from that entry, I think, at least my part of it.

    Diane McCormick was a fellow teacher who blogged with me awhile to offer readers another perspective, something I really appreciated after teaching alone in a classroom for nearly 30 years.

    I’ve never felt very comfortable posing as an “expert,” so I appreciated another viewpoint.

    Even comments from readers who hurl their M.A. thesis at me.

    I appreciate your coming back to make comments.

  8. Oh no problem. I’m starting to make a bad habit out of not being able to keep my mouth shut when I come across blogs (which happens more and more via search engines) and then I end up with comments scattered all over the place online.

    I pose as an expert on AllExperts.com only because that’s what they call us. But then I looked at experts in there in other categories besides philosophy and started thinking that those of us in the philosophy section were not being out-experted much anyplace else! In other words, the name AllExperts is pretty overblown. It should be called AllIntermediates.

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