Little Bird

It was a pleasant morning for a walk, so my husband and I hiked up the hill to the game land. The woods are lovely and green, and we sat by one of our favorite ponds watching the dragonflies coptering around and the green pollen floating, floating - slow-moving rivers of green on top of the water.

As I looked down at my feet, I saw on the grasses a large number of dragonfly exuviae, which is to say the shells the dragonflies leave behind when they emerge from the water, molt, grow wings, and take to the skies. They looked like creatures frozen at the moment in some fairytale story where everyone turns to stone. But I knew them to be evidence of the moment of the creatures' first airborne glory, and so I smiled to see them there. (I was fortunate to capture such a moment of transition in last summer's blip, The Birth of a Dragonfly.)

We came home and had a bite to eat, and with rain predicted in the afternoon, as soon as I was done with lunch, I spent a half-hour in the backyard watching the hummingbirds with my camera. The little birds have grown friendlier and they like to stop and sit a bit on the trellises I've placed around the garden.

I was taking pictures of this particularly charming young lady, when the first drops of rain began to fall. She stayed a bit - unphased, watching the rain. And I was content to sit and continue to photograph her until the rain picked up. An enchanted moment we shared: this tiny bird and me in the gentle summer rain.

The song to accompany this photo is Annie Lennox performing Little Bird.