August Came And Went As Fast As Our Hummingbirds...

Throughout the month of August despite the cooler weather we experienced this year, two pairs of hummingbirds, like tiny, dancing, jet planes, buzzed our back porch every day as they frequented the two red nectar filled hummingbird feeders we have hanging from our porch overhang. I often found myself sitting lazily in one of our porch chairs after working in my garden doing weeding and watering chores. I watched, as these tiny lightening fast aviators would land, settling for a moment, almost always keeping their engines going as witnessed with their wings moving so fast that the movement came together as a blur of continuous flutter.
In this state, sometimes still moving their wings, or sometimes stopping their movement on landing, they would rest on the individual perches provided on the feeders. In one of these states they would attend to their feeding chore.

They rarely noticed me seated near their feeders especially if I had been sitting quietly, not moving for more than five minutes.

I was no more than three feet away from either feeder regardless which end of the porch I would seat myself at with my curious eyes watching, as these tiny birds did their mid-air dance before landing on a refueling station. Sometimes two hummers would feed at different portals on the same feeder at the same time. They would fill their long beaks extending their equally long tongues into the sweetened, red nectar.

Often I saw two birds flying close to the porch, come together in mid air facing each other, and almost touch the tips of their long, thin beaks together. My assumption was always that they were one male and one female.

Watching this behavior at first glance it appeared that the couple were sizing each other up. But their eyes were on either side of their heads so they couldn't look at each other eye to eye. The almost touching of beaks had a purpose, a ritual, a prelude to what would come next.
Always there was the loud humming sound of their continuous mid-air ballet.

The real show stopper was when two birds at a time would come up to each other, and each would touch their front to the front of the other, for a brief second, or less. After this action one or both would start screaming joyously. They made a terrible racket especially when you consider how small these creatures are.

My cats were often lounging on the porch with me, and witnessed the tiny hummingbirds as they celebrated summer. They would watch wide-eyed, as wide eyed as cats can accomplish this facial expression, as all of this transpired. After the hummers were done screaming they often dived down to cat level to buzz just over my cats heads, which annoyed my cats no end! That was our excitement here for August, here in Paradise.

Blue Scrub Jays still visit our peanut in the shell nut box, and fluffy, furry two toned squirrels, sometimes two at a time, still scamper across my husband’s really green lawn as he waters it to ensure that it stays really green!

Our wild rabbit still visits us often sitting on a certain knoll just outside of our yard, curiously watching us. We are told by our neighbor who has lived here longer that we have, that a whole family of wild rabbits lives on our golf course but we only see them one at a time. I would love to see the whole family together!.

And then there is that flock of wild turkeys that march up and down the green looking for whatever wild turkeys look for. We’ve seen them a couple of times since the memories day when we saw them all together march in a group past our fence, last December, in the rain.

It’s been a good summer despite the cool weather. The last four days the thermometer has been hovering at 106 degrees during the day on our back porch. It figures that it has finally warmed up since last Thursday the 23rd it is now officially fall!

Our hummingbirds are still visiting their feeders but they are subdued these days. Their wings still make the loud humming sound but their screams are gone. Mother Nature is telling them that the time for them to leave us, and fly south for the winter is coming closer. Even though we have mild winters here in Hollister we do have many nights in December to March when the temperature falls below freezing. Below freezing weather at night doesn’t work for the survival of tiny hummingbirds.
We will all miss them for the winter.
But we know that next spring they will return to us again, and next August they will perform their mid-air ballet show for us once again, here in Paradise, just outside of Hollister, California.

Carol Garnier Dutra a.k.a. MOM in Hollister
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
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