Yesterday was an astonishingly hot day here on the Oregon coast. Our little weather station showed that at one point it was 93 degrees outside and 82 degrees inside. Now for us, accustomed to highs of around 59 degrees outside, this was amazingly hot! Humidity was way down, too, down to around 20%, so no, this wasn’t like Louisiana hot and humid, more like Palm Springs hot.
Just after sunset I took a slow, contemplative walk around our block. No camera. The robins — seemingly the first birds up in the morning and the last to bed in the evening — were making their loud, final squawks.
There was no wind, so it was easy to hear all the frogs, frogs I never think about except on quiet evenings like this. And it’s somehow reassuring — hearing frogs at twilight — figuring as long as we can hear frogs, everything’s going to be all right.
And then, as I rounded a bend, I stopped to watch a hummingbird moth, looking eerily like a small hummer, working the bright blue lithodora flowers. Wings a total blur, a slightly spread “tail” like a hummingbird. How can an insect and a bird appear so similar? Be so similarly designed to effectively accomplish the same goal: sip nectar from flowers? Amazing. So amazing I simply stood and watched until it finally noticed I was there and moved on.
I moved on as well. A thoroughly delightful walk filled with beauty, quiet, and wonder.
Yes, it was hot here on the coast yesterday. But oh, what a lovely twilight!
©Carol Leigh