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.
ruby-throated hummingbird
May 12, 2020
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.
May 10, 2020
Sunny and warmer. The hummingbirds have survived yesterday’s freeze, and their tiny motors roar as they chase and do courtship displays.
May 4, 2020
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.
May 2, 2020
Sunny and almost warm. A male hummingbird comes in to the feeder, after first examining the empty hook where another feeder hung last year.
May 11, 2019
Mingling with bird calls, the distant, excited cries of small children. The woods glow green. A hummingbird buzzes in to the bleeding-heart.
April 30, 2019
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.
September 17, 2016
The female hummingbird tries to get nectar out of my red iPad cover again, repeatedly probing the end of the fold, my fingers inches away.
September 6, 2016
A hummingbird lands on my red iPad cover and probes the fold with her bill at one end, then the other, while I read an article on the NSA.
September 4, 2016
The buzz of a hummingbird sizing up her reflection in a porch window. From behind the house, a Carolina wren’s incessant harangue.
August 26, 2016
A female hummingbird leaves the beebalm to check out the red lettering on my t-shirt, a sleek green torpedo hovering inches from my chest.
August 19, 2016
Crystal-clear sky. A piece of thistledown floats past like an airborne jellyfish. A hummingbird visits the last, purple scraps of bergamot.
August 16, 2016
Two cabbage whites engage in a dogfight, or possibly a pas de deux. A leaf detaches itself from a lilac branch and turns into a hummingbird.
August 13, 2016
Warm and humid. The air is redolent with rot and mold. A hummingbird zooms past, almost too fast for the eye to register. My stomach growls.