Wow! Terrific shots Sarah! What a precious little baby it is! :) Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see the shot of, "who was watching from my chair". I hope it wasn't a praying mantis. They kill hummingbirds. Someone posted a picture of a praying mantis last year on this Forum and I saw the same picture on www.humingbirdnet.com. It's horrible to say the least! Enjoy all your babies! :) p.s. I think the purple flower is some kind of salvia.

Wow Sarah you are right on with the camera! That thing on your chair is What? Nary a hummer here today again.

Sarah - How exciting for you to see the baby and what beautiful pictures! Is that anise hyssop and cardinal lobelia?

That wings down position reminds me of when the Blue Angels used to perform here in Seattle over Lake Washington. They used to do some kind of stall formation, with the nose of the plane pointing straight up to the sky.

Your pictures are totally amazing!

Wow thanks flowerpower and birdlegs and catnappurrer. That is a praying mantiss but I don't know what kind I know there are native ones and chinese ones this one was smaller than the chinese preying mantiss . And your right thats cardinal flower and anise hyssop which is related to salvia they are all in the mint family. this reseeds all over the place But untill today I have only noticed the bumblebees honeybees and goldfinches use it. Birdlegs still no hummers? I'd like to send you some of mine since they have all had babies and the poulation has increassed. I sure hope you get them soon has your beebalm or cardinal flower started blooming yet? this year the cardinal flower is blooming unusually early normally it doesn't bloom until August or end of July at the earliest. Sarah

excellent series of shots, sarah! I love it! I wasn't sure about the red one. so that's how cardinal flower should look. mine are not happy here for the second year, so I don't have a good baseline comparison. I guessed anise hyssop on the purple one. I was told it is a kind of agastache. I don't know. good to see the hummers on it. I thought it was mostly for bees and butterflies. thank you!

Sarah, you have the most beautiful flowers -- and so many pics with the hummers!

This is another is that - is that Blue Fortune Hyssop? If it is, I've never seen a hummer at mine. That being said, it would seem that young hummers go through a learning process. They have been investigating everything except the Blue Fortune. There was one this morning who seemed somewhat uncoordinated, pushing the flowers all around, often missing the flower altogether. Either this bird was just learning or my neighbor hasn't been changing a nectar often enough.

I've got lots of praying mantises - they are small like yours now but will be 3 1/2 inches by summers end. And fewer - do they eat each other or do birds eat them?

Any way I have never seen evidence that they have bothered the hummers but I did find lots of monarch wings in my garden one fall.

Beautiful lobelia, Sarah. Is it a special variety of cardinalis? Mine don't bloom for more than another month - and aren't so full and lush in the spike.

Thanks standard, oubliette, ward and Lisa, That's just plain old lobelia cardinalis it's an odd plant last year and 2002 I had so much it was almost invasive and tall almost five feet. But in 2003 It really struggled. This has been the earliest it has ever bloomed for me and still only about half of them have bloomed. The anise hyssop is probably blue fortune or foeniculum or scrophulariifolia I bought at Bowman's several years ago and it spread like wildfire It's taken over my garden. Sarah