Hummingbirds & Morning Glories

(Yes, I painted this)
We usually start getting hummingbirds in our backyard early in the spring, before the leaves on the trees have started to open. I'll be out there, scooping poop or trimming the weed/grass back, and I'll hear the "zzzzzrp!zrp-zrp-zrp!" sort of sound they make, and I'll look around, and finally spy one sitting at the top of a bare tree somewhere. Little, tiny shape, at the tip-tip-top of the tippest, toppest-most twig.

This year we haven't had any, but I think it's because of all the work that's been going on with the house. I suppose all the hummingbirds have been scared away.

But, I know next year we'll hear them again, zipping around the morning glories and not being afraid of the big, black bumblebees that also zip around and crawl over and into the same morning glories. I swear, those bees are almost as big as the hummingbirds!
This is only a very short stretch of our morning glories. A previous tenant planted them, for privacy, and they've turned into a sort of flowering kudzu, crawling and climbing over everything in their path. They never die, only turn brown, and start greening up as soon as the days start growing longer. They never need watering, either-- they may go limp in the 100+-degree weather we have every summer, but they don't die. They're immortal. They're monster morning glories, and they eat the house. Literally. I cut them back, and in two weeks they've grown tendrils that snake along the ground, or reach out from the fence, and touch the house somewhere, and start heading up over the roof.

But they're pretty, they DO provide tons of privacy, the hummingbirds love them, and my backyard would feel so naked without all that color surrounding it.