Twos

Just one more hummingbird blip this week, with two photos, followed by two book recommendations.

It's a hard time of year to be an Anna's Hummingbird, as is evident by the way the wind is ruffling the feathers of our newly-resident male, whom we have named Albert. He spent most of today on a branch of the cedar tree in the front yard, and let me get quite close with my Panasonic FZ200 (25-600 zoom).

Albert looks as though he's resting here -- and hasn't yet noticed the bit of cedar tree debris stuck to his feathers -- but what he really was doing was constantly scanning the sky in all directions, looking for rival hummingbirds, as well as predators. Spotting one heading toward "his" feeder on our porch, Albert launched into attack mode, scaring the other bird off quite effectively.

If we had a flock of these *tiny birds in our yard, they wouldn't be half as interesting as the single character we've found endlessly fascinating! (*3.9 in/10 cm long, wingspan 4.7 in/12 cm, weight 0.1-0.2 oz/3-6 gm)

Now on to books, which are almost as popular with many of us as photography! Two I strongly recommend -- the kind that kept me up late at night recently, reluctant to stop reading -- are Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher (2012) by Timothy Egan, a remarkable nonfiction book about Seattle photographer Edward Curtis, and The Invention of Wings, the latest novel by Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher will fascinate anyone interested in photography, Native American culture, obsessions, and American history. Edward Curtis produced 20 volumes on North American Indians, which contained 40,000 photographs of 80 tribes, 10,000 recorded songs, 75 language glossaries, and transcriptions of countless myths, rituals, and songs under adverse conditions and at considerable personal cost. This brief (5:15) interview with author Timothy Egan, filmed in Seattle, is a good starting point, and here you can see eight of Curtis' iconic photos, as well as enjoy another interview.

I loved Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, The Mermaid's Chair, and Traveling with Pomegranates, so I was eager to read the just-published (January 2014) The Invention of Wings, and once my library copy came in, I could not put it down and read it in two days (384 pages), during which I also spent considerable time photographing hummingbirds. Click on the link above to read an overview and excerpt -- and enjoy!