Approximate arrival date of my hummingbirds is usually 24 April. But I'm so eager to see them, so hopeful, I filled and hung the hummer feeders last week. I understand that if fed they will return to the same location every year -- that's why I call them mine. These little birds -- I don't know what it is they give me -- their elegant hovering and pivoting, their dainty honey-sucking, their small throaty communications -- maybe it's because I never saw one until I was way grown up, or because this is the first place I've lived that has attracted them.
Anyway, it's a ritual, and now I have a relationship with them, and every April I wait for them like a 13-year-old girl.
Stuck in the house yesterday because of pollen so thick it yellows the tablecloth and coats the inside of the car, I was talking on the phone about 10 a.m. when I saw a male rubythroat hummer at the feeder and went wild like a 13-year-old girl. MO Conservation calendar, which is sort of an almanac, designates the 25th as their arrival date, but here was one in the 19th. But I haven't seen him again, and he may have been passing through. But now I know mine must be on the way. Made fresh nectar for them: 4 parts water to one part white sugar. Combine and boil, then cool and serve.
Ever since the big snowstorm three days after the spring equinox, it's been so windy and stormy that the house (and the car!) feels like a schooner in heavy North Atlantic seas. Today was drippy and dreary. But today the season's first hummingbird drank at my nectar feeder! Knowing that my favorite birds don't usually show up until the wonderfully green and floral dates around April 24 -- but pining for them like a lovesick teenager -- I put up the feeders April 1. Still -- today, a full week early, was the great day! It was a male Rubythroat. I will get his photo and show you his glorious colors ASAP. In the meantime, this is the glory that was ten days ago: my favorite flower, the crocus, during the thaw. The signs of spring come and go so quickly. . .
