Working at home today, computer on the kitchen table, I had a great view of the bird feeding frenzy outside. With the cooler, damp weather it seems like every finch for miles is hanging out at the feeders and sunflower plants. And then, every once in a while, out of the corner of an eye, you spot a blur of motion. Hummingbird. Usually that's all you see, except this time I had the zoom lens and the hummingbird was really thirsty.

Seeing it sipping at the dinky little basil buds reminded me of a website about Bill Gates back in the 90's. The premise was that given how much money he was worth at any particular moment, how much money would need to be laying on the ground for it to be worth his while to bend over and pick it up. That just the mere act of slowing down to pick up a penny, say, might cost him a thousand dollars in wasted time and interruption. The punch line was that it didn't matter, he'd pick up whatever he saw.

Which made me wonder what size of flower has to be to be worth a hummingbird's effort to sip from. Given the size of the basil flowers, I don't think there's a limit.