Too Fast for the Camera

A backyard hyacinth doesn't move very fast, and it lets me take its picture. Not so with the enchanting flock of Cedar Waxwings, about 20 of them, that visited our tall trees this afternoon while I was outside planting some flowers. I first became aware of a very high whistling going on above my head. Then I spied these medium sized birds with golden bellies perched in the oak, nibbling on bud casings. Then they took off for the cottonwood, where they nibbled on flower petals--40 feet up. No chance for a photo; I could barely keep them in the binoculars long enough to see their tell tale black bandit masks. Norm came home from buying more humus for the flower bed, just in time to see them take off to the south with a flash of golden undersides glinting in the sun. Although the bird books say they are common and stay here year-round, I rarely see Waxwings. It has been years since they descended on some back yard cedars in Ferguson to eat all the blue berries.

This was my second rare bird sighting this spring. At Mercy center in February when I was walking the labyrinth, I spied a ruby-crowned kinglet in some undergrowth near the path. I had never seen one in person before. I take seeing birds I have never seen before or see infrequently as a sign from the Great Spirit, but I'm not at all clear what messages they are bringing me.

We are both achy tonight. Norm spaded up the flower bed/planter in our new wall out front and added bags and bags of topsoil and humus to amend the clay the workmen put there. Then he dug up the Hostas we banked last winter when we knew the old wall would come down, and we replanted some of them in the new space. I started planting some violas that I just had to buy at the garden center yesterday, but I'm only half finished. Not sure what there is about yard work that can make a person feel over 80 in just a matter of a couple of hours. But we got it done before the next rains arrive tomorrow!