Its been a birdfull morning. A Squad of robins spent the morning yelling at
a Barred owl trying to find a peaceful snooze deep in the shadows of a
cedar. A couple of tanagers splashed color around the garden and a handful
of cedar waxwings worked the cascara trees.

This morning while watering the tomatoes a pair of juv rufus hummers buzzed
up to check out the sparkling water spray. One of them perched and watched
while the other zipped about, above, below and around the spray. Finally the
little bird zipped directly through the thickest part of the spray then
settled on a blueberry bush to preen and shake off extra water. The other
then joined the action and with no hesitation flew through the same place
its sibling did, perching companionably close to preen and fluff. The little
kid in me really wanted to move the water and spray them both, but the adult
won out. Then one of them flew up to the water stream and hovered, then
stuck out its little tongue to lap up water on the wing!

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Snohomish County