It’s been foggy and cloudy and grey and cool and just bleeeech here in LA for the last several weeks, barely seeing the sun for real for more than an hour here or a half hour there. It happens this time of year – “May Grey” blends into “June Gloom” as the coastal marine layer just hangs over the area. I don’t know if it goes away in July or if it’s just that no one’s come up with a clever rhyme to describe the condition lingering past June 30th.
But across the yard, particularly if we get a tiny touch of sun near sundown, Little Bastard takes up one of his favorite perches at the top of a dead Japanese elm sapling there.
Most everything is grey with the clouds, with maybe just a touch of color from the sunset seeping through. But not him. He stands out like a beacon.
What little sunlight there might be gets caught, amplified, colored, enhanced, and spat back out by his iridescent feathers.
If left alone he’ll sit there for ten or fifteen minutes, looking left, looking right, staring at me in the kitchen, scanning for danger or intruders. All the while his red and gold and green and white feathers will stand out like they were spotlit miraculously in the gloom. Then, eventually, something will annoy him, probably another hummingbird trying to take a quick sip at his feeder, and he’ll be off like a little, iridescent, furious, feathered, guided missile to defend his territory.
It keeps him off the streets at night, I guess.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 