Hummingbird Overload…

My friend Andrea asked me the other day if I would be interested in visiting a women in Potrerillos who has a web sight called, myhummingbirds.me. Gail is her name, and she and her husband have lived in Panama for seven years. They live in a pretty remote area 7.3 kilometers on a rustic dirt road. She invites bird enthusiasts to visit her home because she has an amazing assortment of hummingbirds who she very lovingly nurtures and she loves to share them with anyone who wants to take advantage of her generosity. She has at least 10 or 12 feeders hanging from an upstairs balcony where she told us she and her husband enjoy their morning coffee everyday. She told me that the reason she has the hummingbird feeders upstairs is because she has cats and it was a much safer location for them, otherwise those hummingbird feeders would more accurately be called Cat Feeders!! Yikes We spent about an hour just mesmerized by, not only the huge quantity of hummers but by the incredible variety of different species of them in one place. And it was so nice that Gail is a wealth of knowledge about all the names of the hummers and would point out the different colors and show us in her book, which birds they were. If your a lover of birds and hummingbirds specifically, you want to visit her house, and bring your camera. Andrea took all these pictures with a simple point and shoot and they are just magnificent pictures. If you do decide to visit her make sure to email or phone(she isnt very good about checking her email) and let her know first, you wouldn’t want to make that drive without knowing she will be available. And she doesn’t ask for any kind of payment but it’s nice to bring a bag of sugar to pitch in on that 5 pound she goes through every day. Every day? Can you believe that? She has to fill the feeders twice a day, what a job.

As I’ve probably said many times before, there are so many things I love about living here in Boquete. But, I must admit, of all the things that make me smile the most, it’s all the natural wonders that surround me. The birds, the plants,the flowers,and the trees, the mountains and the rivers…I could go on and on and on! As my friend and I were driving today she asked me,”Do you still pinch yourself that you actually live here?” I said, “YES!, do you?” and I was pleased to hear her say that, “Yes, after two years of living here I still just marvel at how happy I am to be here!”. It may not be for everyone, but this place is just right for me and meeting a women like Gail today just gave me one more thing to love about being here.