Five hummingbirds briefly orbit the feeder before taking off after each other. A gnatcatcher bombs the driveway with a nestling’s fecal sac.
ruby-throated hummingbird
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
Hummingbirds fight each other; a towhee fights his reflection in the living room window. The sky is as blue and empty as it gets.
Misty rain. After drinking from the feeder, a hummingbird sips water from the ant guard as if to cleanse her palate.
Sunny and warm. Behind the screen of green leaves, a vulture’s lazy drift. A hummingbird collides with a carpenter bee over the yard.
A field sparrow fresh from bathing and a hummingbird fresh from fighting sit two feet apart on a walnut branch, shaking their feathers.
An earth-shaking blast from the quarry, preceded by a muffled boom as if by its own echo. I catch a glimpse of a hummingbird’s long tongue.
Through the warm sun and the cold wind, hummingbirds come and go. I squint at the trees, trying to tell if the leaves are any bigger today.
Sunny and warmer. The hummingbirds have survived yesterday’s freeze, and their tiny motors roar as they chase and do courtship displays.
The sun goes in and it’s cold. But a hummingbird still comes to the flying saucer-shaped feeder, in which rock the bodies of drowned ants.
Sunny and almost warm. A male hummingbird comes in to the feeder, after first examining the empty hook where another feeder hung last year.
Mingling with bird calls, the distant, excited cries of small children. The woods glow green. A hummingbird buzzes in to the bleeding-heart.
Gray and cool. The first hummingbird zooms past. A pileated woodpecker flies in to hammer the old butternut stump, keeping a wary eye on me.