harrying the hummingbird?

[ritaxis]

We walked downtown to the Greek Festival, where I danced one fast dance in a line with mostly little girls in it and then had a coughing fit and no inhaler and we ate too much Greek food and stopped in at the library where I found an Angela Carter Book(Wise Children because I didn't like the first page of Nights at the Circus)so I can read it and answer papersky's question about Carter and magic realism if I can remember what it was (I can only recall "What do you think about Angela Carter?" but it must have been in a context which made it more specific than that). Then we walked home again. On the way out we met with an insane person hanging on to the arm of a terrfied young woman and while another bystander extricated her we called 911 -- cell phones are useful, it got my flat tire fixed yesterday -- and on the way back we watched a hummingbird and a butterfly (a Viceroy, I think) fluttering around a Mexican sage bush and it really, truly looked like the butterfly was harrassing the bird the way blackbirds harrass crows and kestrels harrass redtails. The hummingbird did fly away while we were watching and the butterfly did return to the flowers. I've never heard of this before. Could that have been happening? Don't hummingbirds occasionally snatch off a bug to round out their nectar diet?

Other than that the main activity around here is outfitting Frank for his trip to Louisiana (or Texas, or Mississippi). We bought him an amazing backpack. The first one was so complicated we couldn't even figure out how to close all the buckles. The second one had an external frame which is supposed to be good for distributing the load but Frank had a vivid vision of carrying that around in Southern heat and getting a burn from the metal. The one he decided on was still pretty complicated and still prety expensive but it will hold everything, probably. And we got a floating flashlight and a very fancy serrated pocket knife -- having considered a Leatherman and deciding against it. Dang. I was going to get him a fanny pack too. I can do that tomorrow.

We also did a Costco run for a flat of half-liter bottles of water, a large bag of apricots, two boxes of energy bars, a large bottle of antacids, and I forget what all else. We're putting together a first aid kit. Oh, else includes a strange bandage kit in a funny plastic sleeve.

Yesterday the nice fellow got him a pair of boots which he's been wearing nearly all the time to break them in. I should get him a disposable camera too. I have figured out that I need a cell phone when I'm driving all around the wilds of the mountains above Watsonville (nobody can tell me what those hills are called. It's not Freedom, and it's not La Selva -- is it Larkin Valley? It's not off Larkin Valley Road) but I'm going to send him my phone and share Emma's phone with her. SOmehow. I mean to pick it up from her Weds night and get it back to her Friday night so the rest of the week she can keep in touch with her friends. Hilarity will ensue, I am sure. Anyway, it's three weeks. Or so.

This is all complicated by the fact that a week from today she is moving in up at the University, which means we're going to have to be clever about things.

I am not happy about the existence of Ophelia (the storm). It's weakened a little and it's going the other way, but NOAA is not relaxing the hburricane watch.

On other fronts, I bought a hop plant today, partly because it's pretty but also because its spring shoots are supposed to be a nice little vegetable, but I am not sure that one plant will provide enough shoots for a mess of veggies.

One last thing: I have 101 readers.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think what I said was that to me she had the genuine magic realism feel, but didn't write in Spanish.

The book of hers that I was especially thinking of is The Magic Toyshop. I have also read the collection The Bloody Chamber. I haven't read Wise Children, but as it's the feel I'm going on, it'll probably be OK.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I didn't find either of those. S far I'm thinking that Wise Children doesn't read very much like magic realism, but it's fun, and maybe as it goes it will be more so.

I don't know why I elected myself defender of magic realism anyway.

[pameladean]

I've seen what looked like monarch butterflies mobbing a hummingbird. In that case, they were at a hummingbird feeder in a butterfly garden, and the hummingbird just dashed off and used another feeder.

They do eat insects, but tiny gnats and flies and so on. I don't think they could really get their bills around a butterfly.

P.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm going to assume that the butterfly was harrying the hummingbird. I was thinking of larvae or eggs or something, not the butterfly. But competition is as good a reason for harrying.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

when I'm driving all around the wilds of the mountains above Watsonville (nobody can tell me what those hills are called. It's not Freedom, and it's not La Selva -- is it Larkin Valley? It's not off Larkin Valley Road)

"Above" Watsonville in which direction?
USGS topo maps for the region will be found at:
http://topozone.com/map.asp?lat=36.9201&lon=-121.7637&s=200&size=l&symshow=n&datum=nad83&layer=DRG100

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Fooey. I tried posting the image here, but no dice. Here's what I wrote:

See where the airport is? THe shortest arm points to the intersection of Calabasas Road and Buena Vista Road. Buena Vista Road is the one that curves mostly in a southwest-northeast direction, and Calabasas takes off from that in a mostly southeast-northwest direction. Dusty Trail is I think the tenth thing that comes off of Calabasas Road after you turn on to it from Buena Vista Road. It kind of doubles back and parallels the curves of Calabasas Road at that place. There's all that green splashy stuff, and the red letters "Laguna de las Calabasas" which indicates that there was a Spanish land grant there. And, I guess, a pond with pumpkins growing in it. Or something. Maybe a lake where somebody smashed a bunch of pumpkins.

So I guess that's what the area is called. Laguna de las Calabasas. Nobody would know what I was talking about. I'd have to say "the hills north of Calabasas School."

I'm surprised more features aren't named on that map.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

So I guess that's what the area is called. Laguna de las Calabasas. Nobody would know what I was talking about. I'd have to say "the hills north of Calabasas School."

I'm surprised more features aren't named on that map.

These maps are based on information provided to the USGS crew that compiled them. I would suggest checking with some folks at your county historical society, if you have one; and perhaps with the folks at the county assessor's office, or whatever entity it is that tracks land ownership, etc.

I'd be tempted to suggest that they might have been called the Calabasas Hills or some such; or that specific region might never have been named as such.