During our visit to Mystic, I tested out my new tripod add-on (gimbal head mount for telephoto lenses) and found Uncle Tommy’s family of hummingbirds still using his feeders. They have apparently decided it wasn’t time to head south yet.
These images may show only one of the birds, but there were many visiting all weekend. The birds were hovering around, and sitting in the branches of the surrounding trees, throughout the daytime hours, right up to darkness.
One of the more curious events at the hummingbird feeder was the number of bees attempting to get the nectar. I have not seen this before. In some cases, the hummingbirds were visibly bothered by the bees and aerial combat, of a sort, occurred. Since bees are, reportedly, under threat from severe use of pesticides and climate change, we are not bothered by their nectar stealing.
A mysterious new bird showed up during a recent walk over to the far bog (where the latest beaver development project lives). After a thorough trip through my copy of the Audubon Handbook of Eastern Birds (purchased second-hand for $7.50 in Peterborough NH), I found him: the cedar waxwing is an apparently a common scene in much of North America and is not generally associated with boggy land.