waiting for the bird

Nearly every morning, we eat breakfast in the company of a hummingbird. He likes the cosmos and the prairie spiderwort. I like my muesli and berries, these days with a touch of honey. And I always make the comment that I ought to scurry out and take a photo of our breakfast friend. But he’s quick to feed and quick to fly away and so I let it go.

But in celebration of the fact that I do not have to be on campus until noon, today, I decided that it’s now or never: the bird shall be photographed.

Of course, when he showed up, once I picked up my camera and went outside, he was gone.

And so I positioned myself outside, camera ready and poised (I do not have a tripod so I served as the tripod) and counted the minutes.

I made sure the camera was in focus.





I switched weight between my left foot and right foot because it was tedious to stand still for so long. Then I sat down on the ground. After a while, I stretched out on the woodchips, camera still in hand. The flowers look pretty from a reclining position.





But after some seemingly long period of time, I got up to leave. And I saw him then, hovering, uncertain, then quite certain – that he wanted to be anywhere but here.





I’ve photographed humming birds before and challenging that it is, I managed to pull it off. Not today. Today, you’ll be thinking, the bird won.

But I don’t really agree. I got a good half hour on the ground, in the sun, doing nothing much at all. Bliss.