Thelma and Louise

 

            Kim had one of those gift days on Saturday, with enough rain to keep us indoors pretty much all day, away from the weeding and yardwork that typically take up 2+ hours daily. We accomplished one of our (her) indoor cleaning goals (laundry room floor, especially behind the washer and dryer), and for most of the afternoon she was on a chair aiming her 500mm lens at the hummingbird feeder we had set up outside the window. She was still able to fix spaghetti for dinner, to which I contributed an inedible salad.

 

            Last week we had seen the male hummingbird arrive, a few days before the females, as usual. But then she spotted one female, then another, and they were with us all day. Kim named them Thelma and Louise – though we hope they have a happier ending than the movie characters. Kim can tell the difference between these two identical birds. We named the male Brad Pitt – thanks to Beth for the suggestion.

 

            At this point I am supposed to include some of the amazing photos she took, but unfortunately, something went wrong with her Adobe Lightroom software when I attempted a minor adjustment, and two phone calls to Adobe tech support each made the problem worse.

 

            But for me, more than the photographs was seeing and hearing Kim so thrilled and content. She has been dealing, rather heroically, with a lot of pain and fatigue as she takes care of her gardens, our home, and me. But here she was doing her own thing, and it continued into the evening when she encouraged me to watch a movie on my own while she downloaded her pictures into the inappropriate files on her computer. She had, I think, over 700 hummingbird photos, and she had a big and joyful job deleting the less beautiful ones. (She has since then, working around the problematic software, made some painful discards, taking the number down to 100.)

 

            But wait! Kim figured a work-around solution to the Lightroom problem as we wait to see if our friend Miguel can walk us through a real solution. So here are a few of her photos:

 

 

Louise - or is it Thelma - catching raindrops

Sometimes we are so caught up in the ruby throat of the males that we overlook the amazing beauty of feathers on the back.

The hummingbirds frequented a stick that Kim placed in camera range near the feeders.

Hard to photograph a hummingbird in flight, but Kim did it.

Note the partially open beak. I believe this is called distal rhynchokinesis.

stretch

Brad Pitt (I almost typed "Bird Pitt.")

Thus the name: Ruby-throated Hummingbird

 

            The company of Thelma and Louise was one of a series of encounters with the beauty that abounds at the Bark House. We had an afternoon of amazing clouds over the lake, and their reflections, which we enjoyed with cameras and a glass of Port. We had an evening with heat lightning flashing in the skies. We had flowers and a color Kim named “new leaf green.” Much of this Kim photographed, and I hope to be sharing the best of them in a blog post once we get our photography software straightened out. Meanwhile, we are enjoying an alternative to what we see and read in the news every day.

 

            Thank you, Thelma and Louise. And Brad.