Well, it’s been a while since I let you know how our avian paradise was going. Now in January, with temperatures in the high 70s, hot for even Los Angeles at this time of year, our balcony is still aswarm with Hummingbirds. There has been a persistent bully bird, feeding at the far right feeder and sitting perched on the vine, which has grown in recent months, loose tendrils of vine branching out into the airspace around the balcony rail – begging to be guided to the rail to grab onto it. If only I knew where to tell it to grow to next, I would do so, but to guide the tendrils back to the wall of the apartment building would commit me to going to Home Desperate to buy some kind of trellis, which seems unlikely, since I don’t know how to get it to stay up. Sigh.
The apartment building opposite our windows is growing faster than the vine’s tendrils. It now spans 14 floors above the bottom 4 which look to be parking floors. I have so many questions about the construction and no one to ask – if they say the building is supposed to be 22 stories, does that include the parking floors? 
Just found the picture of the building and an article online which answered a number of my own questions, though not all. You see, we are trying to determine whether we will lose our view of the US Bank building in its entirety or not.
But the hummingbirds are oblivious to the noise of the construction, and the fascinated onlookers who sit on the balcony mid day to watch them and the building as continues its rise.
We recently had visitors, and I can safely say we indoctrinated them with the same obsession we have about the birds. Sally, my Dad’s wife, sat on the balcony every afternoon, and read all three hummingbird books while she was here. There is something very zen about spending time with them. They are little reminders of nature for us urbanites. It is a little like have miniature aerealists performing just for you. Makes you feel very special.
lifeinthethe8tre 