[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]
Ask people to name their favorite animal and most will say a charismatic megafauna: elephants, giraffes, whales, dolphins, gorillas, pandas, lions, tigers, bears—the especially attractive animals on zoo billboards.
Mine is the hummingbird, which is not a magical mythical creature but might as well be.
I can watch them for hours—hovering, divebombing, zipping their long tongues in and out of flowers, pulling G-force maneuvers that would make fighter pilots black out. More than 360 species, all beautiful and fantastic.
Hummingbirds may appear to be gentle iridescent sprites but they’re brave and fierce, with a complex structure of hierarchy and dominance. Our yard always has one boss bird who surveys his domain and decides who enters. If you’re not on the approved guest list, expect to find a needle-sharp feathered bullet shooting toward you at Mach speed.
At the same time, they can cooperate. We have friends whose home draws literally hundreds of hummingbirds that collectively drain several feeders per day.
We once had a couple from Ireland visit the neighborhood who couldn’t wait to spot hummingbirds. It was one of the goals of their trip. At first sighting they were confused: they had expected hummingbirds to be larger, and wondered if they'd seen insects. We confirmed their ID and our visitors were delighted by their New World discovery.
As am I, every time I’m in their presence. It feels like a privilege to encounter them, as if they were fairies from another realm. I’m not convinced they aren’t.
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