Hummingbird Before the Flower Necklace

She Said, “You’ve Got to See This.”

A Hundred Hummingbirds

Andy, our shop foreman, when asked about hummingbirds, became eloquent. He said, “One time hiking in New Hampshire, we had hiked many miles when we came upon a dirt road. We followed the road to the end where there was a log cabin with a wrap-around porch. A woman came to the railing and waved us over to the porch. She called out, ‘You’ve got to see this.’ As we approached the porch, we saw that there, among the flowers, were hundreds of hummingbirds filling the air. I’d never seen anything like it. There had to be more than a hundred hummingbirds feeding.”

Andy told me this experience led him to get a hummingbird feeder. He said, “It’s red; hummingbirds like the color red.” He said when he got his feeder, it came with sugar water. “When you get your feeder,” he told me, “just make your own sugar water hummingbird feed.”

I was helping to clean out an apartment this week. The lady had a hundred exotic spices, one salt and one pepper shaker. Then I opened a cupboard with an entire shelf of sugar, probably 30 pounds. The sugar was donated to the hummingbird project. When I get my hummingbird feeder, I’m ready. R.H.P.

Hummingbird Feeder Tips:

In response to our original version of hummingbird feeders we were under a mistaken impression that red food coloring should be added to the sugar water. We received a number of helpful emails with hummingbird feeder tips and we thought we’d share one of them. The following is from Bobbi:

Great story but one should never add red food coloring to sugar water. All they need is a feeder that has some red on it and use a mixture of 4 cups of water to 1 cup of regular granulated sugar. Feeders should be emptied and cleaned weekly to prevent mold and fermentation of the sugar water. Also never place your feeder in the direct sun. The water heats up to dangerous levels which can cause injury to the birds. – Bobbi in South Carolina

Thanks Bobbi!

Finest Hovering Hummingbird

Ever Made

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of nice jewelry hummingbirds. Some were fair, some good, some pretty good. This one is perfect. You can feel the wings beating. Look at the tail, there is a twitch of mid-air balance. The eyes intense, the beak poised, ready for the next flower. You can, if your imagination is powerful enough, feel the heartbeat of the hummingbird. In flight, its heart beats as many as 1,200 beats per minute. It takes a big heart in such a small creature to allow it to hover motionless before a flower.

Hummingbird

Touching Lightly

Upon the Earth

You sit in the garden

Well-chosen flowers surround

A Sunday paper to read

A butterfly bush, just now blooming

Baby yellow and white butterflies gather

And there, behind you, a whoosh of air at the neck

You feel the air, it’s close.

You turn, nothing, nothing at all

A hummingbird touches lightly upon the earth

A spirit, a ghost, a haunting on a sunny summer day

I think that to see them, it’s like tuning an

Old-fashioned radio: you need a gentle touch

Sipping For Seven Seconds

Rare enough we notice

Quick enough we never get enough

At the extreme edge of flight

A tiny beating heart

Colors red, blue, green

All electric in the summer light

One week, an egg

Smaller than a jelly bean

Two weeks, a baby chick

Three weeks, flight

A summer of flowers

Poised, centered, sipping

Only seconds: three, five, seven, then gone

Hummingbird Eggs

Smaller Than a

Jelly Bean

My sister had The Big Book of Eggs. I’ve inherited it just in time to discover that a hummingbird’s egg is smaller than a jelly bean. An egg is pure magic. It is astounding that in two weeks, the contents of an egg can move from a yoke to a beak, body, feet and wings, and most amazingly of all, feathers, A structure so delicate, so soft, colored and patterned, feathers so beautifully arranged that when it comes time, the baby bird jumps from the nest and flies.

How in the world can that much magic be packed into a jelly bean?

R.H.P.

The Beach House

Hummingbird

I’ve been thinking about hummingbirds this week. I was visited by one for a few seconds this summer. It was at our summer cottage at the granite dock where we have four big containers of purple petunias. I was sitting in a butterfly chair watching the rising tide when I could hear and feel the air flutter a sound near the ear and a brush of air near my neck. I looked slightly to the right. Five seconds more, dip beak, hold, hold, hold, then fly away, all total, seven seconds. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird. They always seem to be in such a hurry, wings that beat 50 to 200 times-a-second, sound like vibrating rubber bands which allow them to hover in place.

R.H.P.

Racing to Slow

Though they may be faster

Then a speeding bullet

We must slow to see

We must quiet the heart

We must still the mind

We must let the soul connect