HUMMERS IN AUTUMN?

Autumn's here. Are the hummers gone?

I made the two photos in this post, of a ruby-throat hummingbird checking out a canna lily near my workroom window, a couple of days ago. Yet even as I captured the moment, I couldn't help but wonder whether they won't turn out to be the last shots I'll make this year of summer's delightful little hummers? 

Perhaps not, though last night's low dipped into the mid-40˚s, and it's now coming up on noon and the temperature is still only 58˚F. Not exactly hummingbird weather. Most, I suspect, have already deserted these parts, heading southward toward Central America where they'll spend the winter. 

I'll certainly miss their zippy antics, whirring wings, and living jewel flashes of iridescent emerald. But procrastination in commencing this long migration can prove fatal. Everything has its season—and for the tiny hummer, that time hereabouts has probably drawn to a close. 

HELLOOOOO, AUTUMN!

On the way back from the eye doc's yesterday, I stopped at a little prairie patch up the road, where I made this photo of a southbound monarch nectaring atop a goldenrod.  

Whoopee! Autumn is officially here and summer but a receding memory. Still, truth be told, the new season could have done a bit better with its premiere—a bit of blue sky, some sunshine, maybe a nice little breeze to rustle the drying leaves and blow the last wisps of the previous three months well away.

Instead, the temperature is currently 53˚F; it has been raining since just after midnight; and the morning sky didn't so much embrace the dawn as it did turn—reluctantly and by only a few degrees—from soppy black to a dingy gray the shade of an old wool sock. 

Not the finest fall debut I've ever witnessed. But I'll take it and be glad, for I know better days are a'comin'. 

HELLOOOOOO, AUTUMN!

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