Worth Every Sip

I don't know what they are called -- "little pink bell-shaped blossom" I believe is the scientific name.  Actually, Jim tells me it is called "Coral Bell."  Regardless of the technicalities, it is a small bush with tiny pink blossoms the size of a caper.  I wouldn't swear to its origin, but my memory associates the plant with Grandma Roose's garden.  If she didn't literally share it with us she at least inspired it.  And so it grows beneath our living room window; having been among spring's early bloomers, its army of blossoms still look as fresh as their first emergence.  From its sentinel position in the corner of the bed it has seen peonies come and go, watched the deer chew away nascent lily stems, and no doubt applauded as pot-of-gold daylilies and purple striped daylilies, fire-red stargazers and some unidentified bluish lavender volunteer blossom have emerged to outshout it. Those, plus the riot of blossoms from the planter boxes stationed nearby.  Blues, reds, yellows and more. 

You will understand our surprise, then, while enjoying the garden from the glider to see a hummingbird repeatedly shun the larger, showier competitors and return again and again to the tiny coral bells.  I suppose it returned out of necessity; it couldn't have drunk enough from any one blossom on any one visit to sustain a gnat, let alone itself.  While I, in his position, might have bellied up to one of those lilies and drank my fill, this little flutterfeather preferred the subtler, more patient, frequent-visitor approach; one taste at a time, time and time again, rather than a single thirst-slaking gulp.

Who knows?  For all their high-volume grandiosity, maybe the larger, more obvious alternatives simply taste bad; or expend all their energies on producing color and size.  Or perhaps it is that the sweetest nectar of all simply -- and routinely -- comes from the quietest, least announced corners of the garden. 

And that it takes patient and discerning eyes to notice amidst all the visual distractions.

Perhaps the hummingbird has learned what I still struggle to remember:  that you can't judge the nectar by the bloom.