Amy in the Garden

My beautiful daughter Olivia took this beautiful photograph in our garden one evening:

The tiny hummingbird loves this spot. He sits there every evening, overlooking the monarda, and makes occasional visits to the scarlet blossoms. He sits with the setting sun behind him, so I only see him in silhouette, but that is more than enough. I know his colors, and seeing him in all-black means that his proportions are that much more visible — beak to body — and so, are that much more appreciated. He is important to me.

Here is the table I set for him:

The monarda, "Cambridge Scarlet," in the foreground, with my leaping garden in the background.

I realized that I only know a few bits of information about hummingbirds, and so I turned to the internet for more. I am sharing a few of the more interesting, to me at least, facts about these tiny bits of flight:

• A hummingbird’s brain is 4.2% of its body weight, the largest proportion in the bird kingdom.
• Hummingbirds are very smart and they can remember every flower they have been to, and how long it will take a flower to refill.
• Hummingbirds can hear better than humans
• Hummingbirds can see farther than humans.
• Hummingbirds have no sense of smell.
• Hummingbirds do not drink though their beaks like a straw. They lap up nectar with their tongues.
• A hummingbirds favorite color is red
• Hummingbirds like tubular type flowers the most.

(From http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com)

Now I am especially happy about all of the red (and tubular!) flowers I have planted for these tiny, smart birds. Another option for them has just come into bloom:

Primary colors: Yellow from rudbeckia goldsturm, blue from Russian sage, and red from crocosmia.

My friend told me a story that illustrates the hummingbird’s memory and smarts: Every year, she hangs a hummingbird feeder on her patio. Early one spring, she and her husband were out on the patio, enjoying the first warmth of the season. The feeder was still in the garage, waiting to be filled and hung. Suddenly a hummingbird appeared and hovered just inches from her face. The message was clear: “Ahem? My FOOD?” She filled the feeder immediately, and hung it up, and the hummingbird was appeased.

I will never again use the term “bird brain” to insult anyone — it is clear to me now that intelligence has less to do with species or even size than it does with attitude. I sit at the feet of the hummingbird, and learn. And appreciate.

WORDS FROM OTHERS

“Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers – a living prismatic gem…. it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.”

— W.H. Hudson (1841-1922), author, naturalist, ornithologist, from his novel “Green Mansions”