The sudden buzz of a hummingbird rocketing back and forth in a mad parabola of attraction, the female watching from a dead lilac limb.
ruby-throated hummingbird
June 23, 2015
An early-morning storm rumbles off to the north. Flashes of scarlet: tanager at the woods’ edge, ruby-throated hummingbird at the beebalm.
May 31, 2015
A light mist rises from the rain-soaked grass. Just as I’m writing this, a hummingbird buzzes in to inspect the red lettering on my T-shirt.
May 17, 2015
Heard but not seen: a hummingbird skirmish. The mist thickens to drizzle, and right on cue a yellow-billed cuckoo—so-called rain crow—calls.
May 7, 2015
Above the almost-blooming lilac, a hummingbird is doing his courtship display, rocketing back and forth like the pendulum of a crazed clock.
May 2, 2015
The groundhog that woke me with its bumping under the floor grazes serenely on wild onions. The first hummingbird zooms past the porch.
August 19, 2014
A furious buzzing from around the house where hummingbirds duel over the last few beebalm flowers. A half-grown fawn emerges from the woods.
May 7, 2014
Two catbirds tangle in the air above the stream. A hummingbird dive-bombs a gnatcatcher. The first great-crested flycatcher holds forth.
May 6, 2014
Strange cries coming from the powerline—mammalian, possibly ursine. I’m mesmerized by the sun on the creek. The first hummingbird zips past.
September 9, 2013
Thin clouds; the sun is a bright smear. A hummingbird hovers over the spent flowers in my garden, nudging a yellow leaf with her bill.
August 27, 2013
A hornet nuzzles my arm like a hoverfly but doesn’t sting. In the garden, the buzz of hummingbirds dueling over scraps of bloom.
August 18, 2013
In the two months I’ve been away, my yard and garden have turned alien, taken over by stiltgrass. The buzz of a hummingbird in the bergamot.
May 14, 2013
From the herb bed, I hear the squeaks of a hummingbird sipping from the columbine. Then he’s in my face, gorget like a small red torch.
August 17, 2012
A hummingbird sits on the tip of one of the dead cherry’s few remaining twigs, like a fat green leaf with the stem pointing the wrong way.