staying home

Edgar and the Great Outdoors

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / Leave a comment

Edgar doing a bit of supervised bird watching/conversing with the crows this morning.

He has only once tried to make a break from his back deck playground.

Many years ago I had a market tent set up for a summer studio sale in the garden. The tent roof was, apparently, enticingly close to the deck.

I was inside the tent when I heard a thud as Edgar landed on the cloth roof. As quickly as I ran out to try and rescue him, he was faster.

Somehow he deployed his “terrified cat” superpowers to make the gravity defying leap back to the familiar safety of the deck.

The experience confirmed his (correct) belief that the outdoors is a dangerous and unpredictable place.

Surfaces that look perfectly solid, for example, are deceptive.

He has never tried to escape since then.

The Edgar Diaries

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 8 Comments

Edgar, so confident that all will be well, now finds himself nodding off during the Prime Minister’s daily briefings.

He is however, adamant that everyone should listen to the Health Officer’s advice and keep on staying the bleep home. Do not cross this cat. You have been warned.

staycation

And, just in case you need a reminder about the vital importance of hand washing …

More on the importance of keeping to some sort of schedule during these discombobulating times.

4:57 Edgar arrives at my desk.
4:59 Geordie arrives as back up.
5pm is dinner time and some schedules must be adhered to, regardless of whether the humans have lost track of the days. Honestly, they say, what would the people do without us …? A good question.

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Because his own luxury pet bed is starting to seem a bit cramped, or perhaps just because he feels like a change, Edgar has now laid claim to the dog’s bed as well as his own. Luckily Geordie is willing to roll with the punches.

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And … a rare win for the human, staring contest-wise.

You know the days are long when you’re competing in staring contests with Edgar.

Stay safe!

Hummingbird Tonic

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 6 Comments

Well, I think what today needs is . . . hummingbirds!

Luckily (unlike toilet paper) they are in decent supply around here. After a bit of a scarcity over the past few weeks, I had two Anna’s Hummingbirds come by this week.

These days, a special bird visitor is the equivalent of a wild party.

It’s certainly a blessed “stop anxiously listening to the radio and obsessively bleaching surfaces” moment.

So, in case your hummingbirds haven’t arrived yet, here are my recent visitors for some vicarious hummingbird therapy.

First we had a male Anna’s stop by a few days ago to check out the intoxicatingly scented Daphne Odora.

I imagine the nectar of the daphne must be exquisite to the discerning hummingbird palate

Post lunch pause. He had to clean some pollen off his beak and stuck around to enjoy the view.

Bit of a nap/meditate …

A good wing stretch … and then off he flew.

Yesterday I put fresh hummingbird nectar out and it seemed as if this female had been just waiting for it to be served.

Photo by June Hunter

Next, she went to check out the fountain. I noticed last year that they seem to like the running water in the fountain better than the static bird bath.

(See Novice Hummingbird)

She would take some sips of water from the bird bath and then go for a quick fly-through shower under the stream of water.

Then time to dry off in the lilac tree …

… followed by a snack and a perch on the purple rhododendron.

Then she was off again, pursuing her hummingbird adventures. I’m hoping they have a nest nearby and that we’ll be seeing both of them again soon, perhaps with babies.

Stay tuned for some #raventherapy coming up later this weekend!

 

 

 

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