Back porch hummers

When I first decided to try blogging a month or so ago, I thought my first entry would be about birds. They certainly are my most constant companions on the back porch when I sit. But other stuff came up and here I am writing about birds, finally, five entries in.

So much can be said about birds. They have been characterized as the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ regarding habitat health. When populations drop, you can bet there’s a problem with the environment. Audubon, Bird Watcher’s Digest, and other publications have cited plenty of those examples. Most neo-tropical bird populations are dropping, while some others, like year-round Canada geese, are doing better. That’s some good news, I suppose.

I find bird behavior downright intriguing. Years ago I was out birding with Aullwood’s Tom Hissong at Tar Hollow State Park in southern Ohio. In that pre-iPod era, Tom played the song of the summer tanager on his cassette tape recorder -- and lo, and behold, my first summer tanager -- all decked out in deep scarlet with those formal black wings -- lighted in a tree just in front of our group of Wayne High School biology students. We were amazed. And very impressed.

But back yard birds are my best avian buddies. I hear barred owls now and then and just last week a Cooper’s hawk snagged a chipmunk one door away on our cul-de-sac right in front of grandson Noah and me. Talk about cool!

But it’s the guys and gals who come by the bird bath and feeders in the back yard that I see most. Tufted titmouse. Northern cardinal. Carolina chickadee. Red bellied woodpecker. White breasted nuthatch. Beautiful little bodies that swim through the air and navigate minute branches in my porch-bordering hedge that amaze day after day.

It was in Lake City, Colorado a few years back where I witnessed the greatest concentration of hummingbirds I had ever seen. I was amazed at how aggressively they protected their sweet water source. I had been feeding ruby throateds here at home for a few summers, but never saw that behavior. When I got home, I paid better attention.

Sure enough, lots of fire in the belly here, too. I have witnessed one little creature sitting sentry in the hedge, just waiting for another little guy to fly in. Off she’d go, hustling the interloper off her food source. I was most amazed at the sound of their wings touching: kind of a quick buzzing sound. Youch! That has to cause damage to those miniature little bodies!

Here’s a back porch poem from last summer:

Hummer 1

The challenger approaches from

below and east -- the dark side of evening

sweetwater -- moving up,

then

lateral,

jerking incrementally,

analyzing

acquisition of target

while stalking avoidance of the

current dominant female

posting sentry somewhere

near.

Then a slaking deeply in shadow,

ingesting as quickly as systems

allow:

one --

two --

three --

drafts of surrogate flower

before the proprietor chatters in,

reestablishing the current order

of things.

4 July 2008

rainy, under canopy

Today’s elder idea: A paraphrase from American hero John Glenn, speaking in Dayton during the centennial celebration of first flight in 2003:

We have much to learn yet about flight by studying hummingbirds. We know how they do it, but their durability and agility still hold secrets that human flight can’t duplicate.