Distracted by hummingbirds

I get up on weekday mornings at 5 a.m. to drive dh to his bus. Sometimes I return and crawl back into bed but most times I stay up. This morning I felt very reflective as I pulled into our parking lot. The colors in the sky were lightening from deep velvety midnight blue to a light royal purple. The moon, full yesterday, had lost its hard edges. I was listening to a beautiful CD we have called "Heavensong: Music of Contemplation and Light." My favorite pieces are "The Prayer" and "Alleluia" both of which I listened to as I sat quietly in the car, no one else awake, no lights in the condo windows. It was 52º out, a reminder that Fall is coming.

I had planned to do some planning and writing this morning before going to a 9:00 a.m. Nia class. But as I was sitting in the livingroom Cleo suddenly got very still and started making "ack ack" noises. I looked up at the window and this is what I saw:

I was so excited! I had bought the hummingbird feeder a few months ago and hadn't put it up. I guess I was a bit self-defeating thinking that perhaps these tiny birds wouldn't fly all the way up to the third floor. But I was wrong, as we so often are when we self defeat. As you can see from these photos, they did indeed find their way up to the third floor and for the past hour have delighted both Cleo and myself.




And I find yet another reminder about my healthy, mindful eating. I found this entry in Wikipedia for hummingbirds: "Like bees, they are able to assess the amount of sugar in the nectar they eat; they reject flower types that produce nectar that is less than 10% sugar and prefer those whose sugar content is stronger. Nectar is a poor source of nutrients, so hummingbirds meet their needs for protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, etc. by preying on insects and spiders, especially when feeding young." (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird)
I make my hummingbird nectar with a 1:8 ratio of sugar. So they like that. But they don't eat only nectar as the article says. They inherently know what to eat to sustain them. And they can't gulp their food of course :) So those are two reminders for me today--eat those things that are GOOD sources of nutrients and sip, sip, small bites, small bites.