I am an early bird when it comes to preparing an ample supply of nectar and getting the feeders up for another reason. In truth, though, it is sort of like a rain dance: my attempt to influence and propitiate nature so it will do what I want…warm up! The return of the hummingbirds is yet one more sign of the seasons, a promise that spring’s final chills will be wearing off soon.īeing as cold-blooded as a lizard, I often get my nectar prepared (plain sugar and water, 1:4, nothing else) and feeder up as early as March just in case a little hummer happens to buzz my way. They do in fact stop flying, stop humming.Īlthough pipsqueaks even in the world of birds, they seem to carry the warm weather with them on their backs when crossing the borders of the Americas.

They do in fact build nests, lay eggs, and brood them. I have seen them do it, both on a feeder and on tree branches. Nonsensical as it may sound, I simply imagined them being airborne at all times–eating, sleeping, heck maybe even giving birth.īut they do in fact perch, if only for fleeting moments as if to catch their breath. For Sheri Williamson of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory has to be right in thinking that “the hummingbird vocabulary is a hundred percent swear words”!1)įor a long time, I had a sort of unarticulated belief/assumption that hummingbirds simply hovered (i.e., hummed) 24-7. (And, if humans could understand them, they are probably cussing each other, us, and every other thing that is not sweet nectar. And yet there they are, again and again, twirling and twittering and teleporting through the air nearly faster than the eye can see. They can perform feats of motion that almost defy the laws of physics, that seem to create G-forces strong enough to shatter the strongest material. Hummingbirds know not of fear and will faceoff with just about anything, curmudgeons that they are. These winged warriors are fantastic wonders of nature.

You may be tempted to swat at it, thinking it is some monstrously mutated mosquito.īut then your stupor breaks and you realize the truth: You have just had a close encounter of the hummingbird kind. This thing, whatever it is, seems simply to pop into existence with no more than a strange humming buzz, challenging your presence for a moment, and then popping back into the ether with a nigh-unperceivable tirade of twittering squeaks. Have you ever been outside, maybe working in the garden, soaking up rays by the pool, or snoozing in the hammock, when suddenly a flying, sparkly green centurion with pointy black spear charges up, out of nowhere, dangerously close to your face?

Say hi to my little friend