Beautiful In Any Weather - But A Little Crazy

Last night's sunset was another beauty. The clouds began to build, giving us hope for rain.

The rain started around 4 a.m. with a little thunder and lightning! We don't see much of that on the island and have missed a good St. Louis type of thunderstorm. Around 4:30 a.m. the power went off. Thankfully, the rain storm brought cooler air since all the fans were off.

A beautiful sunrise.

The open section of the deck was wet, of course, but it had also blown in under the roof a couple of feet, including the area where the hummingbird nest hangs, as seen above.

We've become concerned about Esmerelda lately. She seems to be either suffering from post-partum depression or is just having some type of breakdown. Ok, I know you're rolling on the floor about now, but seriously, something is going on with this bird. A couple of nights ago, we had gone into our quarters to watch a movie and turned the deck lights off. Suddenly, Esmerelda was at our window screen, cheeping like crazy. She fluttered there for a long, long time. We couldn't imagine what she was doing - trying to catch bugs to add to her slurry? No, didn't look like it. Was something wrong with the nest? A preditor? No, the nest looked fine. She seemed upset with us. She wouldn't leave and go back to her nest either. She just kept fluttering at the window screen. We finally turned off the lights inside our quarters and turned the deck lights back on to lure her back to the nest. Finally, that worked.

Last night she was busy flitting around gathering nectar and insects and feeding the babies as we were eating our dinner. When we finished cleaning up about an hour later, we noticed that she was still away from the nest and it was getting dark. Usually she's settled in for the night by dark. We went on into our quarters to watch another movie, checking on the nest from time to time and not seeing her. When the movie was over, she still had not returned. I was certain that something terrible had happened and worried about the babies.

When we got up this morning, she still was not on the nest. I was really filled with dread; I knew the one-week old babies wouldn't survive without her. But suddenly, there she was!!!!! Yay! I don't know where that party girl had been or even if she had really been gone all night, but now she was back on the job. The tiny little heads raised up above the top of the nest with opened beaks, waiting to be fed, so I knew they were ok.

After another nice, hard rain, we were treated to this lovely rainbow....and more rain.