The Daily Bucket–The Newest Hummingbird

I toss in my sleep, grabbing for the water bottle. I have to push the straw deep for the last few drops of precious cool water.

And in that moment between a memory and a dream, I was not sure if I was a hummingbird draining the bottom of a feeder, and dreaming I am human, or a human draining a water bottle, dreaming I am a hummingbird.

Then the humming bird flew vertically at a million miles an hour.  I cannot do that, so I am a human.

I am assuming the brightly colored hummers are male Annas Hummingbirds, and the greyer hummers are females.

I’m in NW Oregon. within the Anna’s winter range.  There’s seven different types of hummers in Oregon. Five are rare or live east of the Cascades. Rufous and Anna’s are more common.  But there’s nothing common about any hummingbird’s flashing beauty.

I spent my son’s inheritance on full length glass doors so we can sit inside and grok at the back yard.  The hummer feeders are right outside.  We have two feeders three feet apart, and a third, thirty feet distant. The hummers are supposed to share at that distance.

Instead they bicker. One chases the other two off of the 3-foot-apart feeders.  It looks like there’s a male and a female and … a juvie?  Can’t they all just get along?

They are hitting the feeders hard.  I filled them up after taking this picture.

They’ve got a pattern. Pear tree to maple to feeder to other pear to other feeder to maple to chase other hummer to pear.  All at warp speed.  I want to draw it with colored pencils.  It would look like a Kandinsky painting.   

I wonder if they nest in the maples. They zip to the neighboring firs and redwoods and big pines, but seem to circle back to the feeders, and the berry bushes, and the last garden flowers of Autumn. I love hearing their buzz nearby, if I turn just right they will flash their ruby laser for me for a second.

Thanks for reading the Daily Bucket.

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This Bucket contains your daily requirement of science due to inclusion of a good faith effort to identify the hummingbirds.

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