The hummingbirds are back. Jim pointed out a male Ruby-throat sitting on a bush in the back yard, just about an hour after I finally put out the feeders.
For the past couple of years, I’ve noticed a female first. Last year, I was sitting on the back step in my bathrobe—which seems to attract them as it is grass-green satin with raspberry collar and cuffs (either I look like the biggest flower and so full of promising nectar, or the biggest male hummingbird, and so full of , well, you know)—and she flew up to me and hovered about two feet from my face, after first checking the lilac tree where the feeder usually hangs.
I like to think that this female is the one I saved in the neighbor’s entryway a couple years ago trying to escape and helplessly flying up against the glass window. I dislike things that jump or fly too close to me, but I screwed up my courage and grabbed a dishtowel and caught her safely within it (they’re so tiny, it is scary because they seem so fragile) and set her outside on a bush to recover and fly away.
That’s what I like to think, anyway.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology