On the morning of September 16th I was on my deck drinking coffee. We’d been out of town for three weeks, so I was reveling in our backyard view. That’s when a black-chinned hummingbird got in my face, hovering two feet from my nose. The bird seemed to shriek at me: “You knew we’d be flying a thousand miles to Mexico soon. And you left home, with empty feeders, when we’re gassing up for an intercontinental road trip?”
It was the last hummingbird I would see this year. They’ve all migrated away, now. Sigh.
Our garden had been the DIA of hummingbirds all summer. The first one flew in on May 5th, in a snowstorm, as I noted in my bird journal. Yes, I’m a bird nerd that way. We should have put hot chocolate in our nectar feeders, for the first chilly arrivals. They weigh less than an ounce on average, so they can afford the calories.
Hummingbirds are feisty creatures, battling one another for access to our two nectar feeders, and four hyssop plants with a thousand blossoms between them. When hummingbirds attack each other, it looks like the world’s cutest aerial dogfight. Little hummingbirds, there’s plenty for all, if you’d only learn to share! I hope you made it to Mexico OK.
Our backyard is a haven for migrants. We live in Old Town Fort Collins, which is mostly thought of as a landing spot for invasive Californians, who flit in and jack up real-estate prices. But the birds love it too. One recent spring there was a huge snowstorm in the mountains. The west wind blew a Scarlet Tanager and a Bullock’s Oriole onto our suet feeders. For a week our backyard was bursting with red and orange. Then they fled. Which reminds me of my ex-girlfriends. Here one day, walking the aisle with someone else, the next.
To encourage these gorgeous, feathered friends, I’ve loaded up on feeders. They contain a dozen varieties of food, along with a birdbath. I also mount a mister, because it assists in something called “leaf bathing.” Noting all this, my wife bought a plaque that declares our backyard to be “Peter’s Bird Spa and Bistro.” Our place is a “word of mouth” hit for birds. Or maybe it's a viral, “chirp of beak” breakout?
Hummingbirds remember every feeder they’ve ever visited. That’s good for a creature with a brain the size of BB. Rufous hummingbirds remembered our yard, as well, at the midpoint of their 3,000-mile trek from northern Canada to Southern Mexico. Every day they consume twice their body weight in nectar and bugs. Their hummingbird hearts beat twelve hundred times a minute. Unless it’s cold out. That’s when they go into “torpor,” which is one heartbeat ahead of “dead.”
I don’t blame them for leaving town. Torpor sounds scary. And at this time of year, even the sun is beating a retreat from our skies. We’ve lost three and a half hours of sunlight since the summer solstice, and we’ll lose another ninety minutes by the winter solstice, on December 21st. And don’t get me started on Daylight Savings time. We’ll “fall back” on Nov. 1. But the whole thing smacks of a plot by the pharmaceutical industry to boost sales of antidepressants. I plan to guzzle leftover hummingbird nectar, to sweeten my outlook as the gloom gathers.
Every year, when nature takes away the hummingbirds, it gives us dark-eyed juncoes, flying down from the mountains. Three varieties of juncoes scratch around under our birdfeeders: slate colored, pink sided, and white winged. That keeps me guessing. And watching. And feeding.
It’s time to put out our heated birdbath. What’s a bird spa, without a hot tub?
