Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Sequins In The Snow

It's been snowing in Portland, so naturally I'm worried about the hummingbirds. Most folks in the U.S. do not worry about their hummingbirds when it's snowing. Their hummingbirds are sucking down Mai Tais in Costa Rica, but ours stick around.

Gosh, I remember years ago, I'd see a single hummingbird whiz by in my garden and totally lose my shit and blast off to the house to cook up some nectar and dig the feeder out of the closet. It would be all scuzzy from the year before when I'd done the exact same thing. I'd change out the nectar a couple times but the little bugger would never come back, and come winter I'd take down the feeder and pack it away moldy out of sheer irritation.

But now! Now we have hummingbirds. You have to broom them away sometimes if you want to get anywhere. Most of them are Anna's hummingbirds. And we get to keep them all winter. Unlike other sorts of hummers, they don't migrate. It's kind of a new thing. They used to hang out in southern California, but people started planting all those tropical trees and flowers and hanging out nectar stations and the hummers have approved of this all the way up to Canada.

Of course there aren't a ton of flowers to sip at here in the winter. The Anna's seem to get by mostly on the feeders and on bugs and spiders. They can poke around in the bark and leaves for bugs but the spider deal is a neat setup. If they've got a decently industrious spider around, they can just pop by and nab her cache right out of the web like picking up groceries. Or, of course, the spider herself. Boop! Spider deleted from web.

The Cornell Ornithology people, who fancy themselves experts, say a flock of hummingbirds is called a "bouquet," or a "glittering," or a "tune." Which sounds lovely, but there are no flocks of hummingbirds. Hummingbirds do not have a tiny social bone in their bodies. They're all assholes. The males perch on a high twig and natter on for hours: tweedle tweedle tweedle, snick snick snick. It's not much of a tune, but then again they don't have a lot to communicate. Just this is mine, and this is mine, and that over there is mine, and so is all this too, mine mine mine. Any given hummer will spend 10% of his time feeding and the rest of the time trying to spindle any other bird coming in.

They do get together briefly for the purpose of making new hummingbirds but there's not a lot of commitment to it. The male does a terrific courtship display by zipping up so high he looks like a sequin, and then swooping down and pulling up at the last second with a nice loud pop. According to the same Cornell Ornithology people, who are not to be trusted, this is a "curious burst of noise that they produce through their tail feathers." Because of course that is the way to a girl's heart. Academics don't get out much.

Your average hummingbird is all appetite and attitude because he's never that far away from dead. They can barely make it through the night. They are obstreperous narcissistic little pissants that would totally be tweeting at three in the morning if they weren't in a near-death state at the time, but they are. They spend the night hunkered down in a state of torpor, which is from the Latin for "might be dead, I don't know, poke it and see what happens." They'll barely breathe. Their hearts will sludge up. They might even be so logy they'll hang from a perch like an ornament.

A few weeks ago it finally got below freezing here. And as the dusk deepened into dark, I saw two females sitting right next to each other on my feeder and drinking nectar, inches a part. They stayed there for several minutes, tanking up, in an unprecedented display of mutual forbearance. I know what happened. Mercury started to plunge and those two looked at each other and said shit just got real and left each other alone.

But it's that bad attitude what's going to get them out of their state of torpor in the morning. Right around dawn they're going to be thinking well, one option would be to just die, but then they'll get that mental image of the feeder with somebody else already at it and zzing. They're off to kick some tiny fuzzy ass again.

34 comments:

  1. Wow. I already had three compelling reasons to quit the East Coast and move to Oregon. Now I have four. When it starts getting up near nine or ten, I might have to get off this couch. Happy New Year!

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  2. Our hummers went way south a few months ago. Wish I was smart enough to follow them. Apparently I am not. Yours are really brave little suckers.

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    1. You and I are not tropical folk. It's in the genes.

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  3. I adore your description of the song, and the temperament of hummingbirds. Spot on. I am SO glad not to have hummingbirds to worry about in winter. I'd be fashiioning tiny stocking caps and booties. I'd be rigging up heat lamps with high risk of electrocution for all concerned. Thank GOD. I take my feeders down around Oct. 1, wash them, and put them where I can't be tempted to deploy them. As beautiful as your Anna's are, I feel the constant low-level worry, spiking to freakout, that you must be feeling. Best to think of them as little pisspots. Agreed!

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    1. Thank you for the mental image of the stocking caps and booties. That alone will keep me through the darkest days. And I haven't got one doubt you'd do that, either. I always thought the tweedle tweedle tweedle snick snick sounds like someone sharpening his bill.

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  4. "Hummingbirds do not have a tiny social bone in their bodies. They're all assholes." My big laugh for the day. And obstreperous is the perfect word for hummingbirds.

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  5. "They are obstreperous narcissistic little pissants that would totally be tweeting at three in the morning if they weren't in a near-death state at the time, but they are." LOL! So true.

    Anna's are now colonizing southeastern Alaska and Idaho, so Portland is virtually Acapulco to them. If you haven't already switched to a 3:1 solution, do it now to help get them through the rough patches. Also, put out some nest material, because they'll start nesting shortly if they haven't already.

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    1. Thanks! Good reminder. Last year I went to the neighbor's to borrow a cup of Golden Retriever.

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  6. They're feisty little so and so's are they?
    I didn't know that. I also didn't know there were different types.
    I'm glad people put out feeders for them. I'm not sure we have any around here where I am or even any in Australia. I'll have to check my bird book. When I finally get out of bed that is; I'm sitting up typing because I couldn't get back to sleep after a 4am coffee.

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    1. They're western hemisphere birdies. There used to be some in Europe, possibly so long ago it wasn't even Europe. At least someone found a fossil of one there.

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  7. No hummers here.But as of yesterday,Mrs Sunbird has moved into her dinky little nest house.And we had a belting great rainstorm last night...I'll go and look at the nest as soon as it's light enough to not fall inelegantly down the stairs...

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    1. Oh you guys have entirely too many cool birds to even miss a hummingbird.

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  8. I was once at a restaurant high on a mountain near Tucson, AZ, and all along the long porch were feeders. There were too manny hummers to count and there was a large variety of them. I don't remember the name of the largest variety but they were there too. We ate on the porch so we could watch them all. I can't say they were socializing but they were too busy eating to fight. What a treat it was!

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    1. If you get enough feeders, they start to share. I think because they're unable to defend them all.

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  9. I love that the hummers all seem to have 'little man syndrome' and are as aggressive as they can be. I started to type 'suffer from....' but realised that THEY don't suffer. Or not if they can help it.
    Another great post, leaving me smiling all over my fat face.
    Thank you.

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    1. I've heard tell sometimes they actually manage to impale each other.

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  10. "They are obstreperous narcissistic little pissants that would totally be tweeting at three in the morning..."

    ...Does that mean that Donald Trump is some mutant form of hummingbird?

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  11. They're beautiful! Makes up for the attitude, quite a bit I think :)

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  12. "They are obstreperous narcissistic little pissants that would totally be tweeting at three in the morning if they weren't in a near-death state at the time ..." You make me laugh AND get out the dictionary. I am now going to use "obstreperous" at least once a day.

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    1. I think you'll find it's easy to work into the conversation these days!

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  13. Last summer one of them actually scared a Blue Jay away from the seed feeder - I guess he figured the jay was too close to his nectar. And I regularly get scolded when i take down the feeder to refill it. I'm all like "Dude, seriously?" We get the ruby throats up in Quebec

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    1. I have to admit it's a serious bird that takes on a blue jay. I've always admired my jays (here, it's a scrub jay, although I've seen a Steller's in my yard), but last year when one of them made off with my brand new fledged nuthatch chick, they're been On My List. I haven't decided to forgive.

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  14. I wish I could even come close to the wit and wordplay of your nature observations. A book is in order. Craig "Animal Dialogues" Childs, move over.

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    1. Thank you. I've written one, and I like it. It's what finally got me an agent. Unfortunately, she has not been able to sell it to a publisher yet. The publishers are confused whether it's a "bird book" or a "humor book."

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    2. Your publishers should create a new category. Bird Humor.

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    3. The way I look at it, humor is humor. It doesn't matter what it's about.

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  15. Oh spectacular. We have no such hummers in my neck of the (East Coast) woods. I have to be content with cardinals and woodpeckers and little tiny birds that I am unable to identify because I haven't the patience to figure out the bird guide.

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