Tonight's Inspiration brought to you by....

This (along with the Irish Whiskey) was tonight's inspiration:

and...

well, the lovely sunset, AND the fact that my annoying neighbor's home is "In Escrow" which just delights Dr Desert Flower and I endlessly.  By "annoying" I mean:
- leers at DDF at the neighborhood Christmas party, at length, enough to make the seasoned and thick skinned DDF uncomfortable enough to say "let's go, now, please"
- looks through the holes in the fence into our back yard
- complains when I cut his trees that are over-hanging my pool and dropping leaves into my pool, stating (falsely and stupidly) "oh, I didn't know they were going in your pool" [BS, for 10 years the previous owners argued with you about it]
- has two incessantly annoying barking chihuahuas that really should be food for hawks
- comes over to complain after 4th of July when we had friends visiting who brought kids and who we ALL swam in the pool and had fun "it was really loud yesterday" to which the dad of the kids and I replied to chihuahua walking retired New Yorker "yes, kids are loud, deal with it"

So the fact that annoying jerk's home is in Escrow, gives us hope that someone nicer will move in soon.  Il faut voir.  Maybe they will have pit bulls that poop everywhere and after which they don't clean up... =\

Il faut voir.

My friends Joe M, Anne M, Ryan and Garvey will appreciate the gravitas of this seismic shift in the universe's alignment.

Admiral Ackbar: It's a Trap!

Never owned a bicycle

I was on Amazon last week, freshly equipped with gift certificates I got form work for having "patent of the month" (ohh weeee!) and I saw this "lighted humming bird feeder" for $20 ...  and I thought...  "that's kind of cool".  But I should have listened to Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars:  "It's a trap!"

The feeder DOES light up, yes indeedydo.  And it IS solar powered, conveniently.  But the photo cell

is So Sensitive, that it will NOT turn on until it is pitch dark, and all the hummingbirds have gone to sleep.  I've tried "accelerating" the light activation by placing over the sensor an opaque paper with a rock on top to hold it down in a light breeze, but that only works "sometimes" (I need darker paper, or more sheets of paper...   which...  as a printer's son, I should have an ample supply).

So it lights up...  cost much more than a normal feeder...   looks kinda cool..   but No Hummingbirds drink from it at night.   They are all resting, roosting, storing up energy after their keg parties and wine drinking bashes, kids-to-bed, snoozing once it is dark.   So the lights are for humans, not for humming birds, sadly.

it Does change colors, every few seconds...

Three Amigos Drinking Party

Had I not seen it with my own two eyes, and ZOOMED in at 75X to capture this image, I would NOT have believed it was true:

What appear to be 3 adolescent Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna), likely all young males, Most Likely all nest-mates (brothers), drinking together, from the exact same nectar feeder at sunset in my back yard.  Fueled by Tullamore Dew and a beautiful sunset, I took out my screen in the Master bed room, enabling a panoramic view of the back yard, and low & behold...   3 males...  none with even a goatee of chin color yet.  I saw two..   then three..  and could not believe my eyes.

Hummingbird males, who instinctively try and drive off - even kill - competitor males from feeders had reached a silent detente, drinking at sunset, quaffing down the last carbs of the night to fuel their 200 bpm heart rhythms while they waited for the giant orbiting sphere to appear in the East tomorrow morning.

It's either three adolescent males sharing a keg, or three sisters sharing a double magnum bottle of sweet sweet nectar before putting the kids to bed.  Either way, I am delighted to see that one of the 7 feeders in my yard have attracted communal, cooperative hummingbirds.

[not to be sexist, but they have the "starting indications of goatees", with little speckles.  Female Anna's have nearly white / gray throats with no color...  so I think this is a keg party.]