My New Best Friend

We've had various hummingbird feeders over the years, some cheap, others expensive and none of them perfect.  The ants always figure out how to climb in and drown, or they are hard to clean or something breaks. You know. 

This  year there were fewer hummers than usual, but we were diligent with the nectar and the ant removal and of course provided lots of cool flowers as well as nectar, with an abundance of red blooms this year, everything from geraniums and petunias to begonias and verbena. 

The past few weeks I've noticed that whenever I work in the garden I get "buzzed."  The tiny bird, wings beating, hovers nearby as if to say, "Hi!  Thanks for the delicious nectar."  They are pugnatious little things and guard their territory well.  I alwys  offer a greeting in return, if only, "Hi!  Birdie."  Lately they have been coming to the deck and saying "Hi!"  and this morning, for the first time ever, I saw two birds in parallel flight, not squabbling or dive bombing each other but flying together.  This was so cool.

I think they like me.  They do like the nectar and they seem to know who brings it and fills the feeder regularly.    Can a woman have a relationship with a hummingbird?  I don't know, butI think we are definitely friends.

The Joe Pye Weed in the garden has finished blooming,(alas, butterflies)  but we have morning glories galore and  the cleomes which reseeded themselves from last year are great.  I had a tiny coleus grow from a seed dropped last year. I have to say I love my little garden, from the leggy somewhat drab phlox I rescued from the old state hospital grounds to the heath that blooms all winter to the  chipmunk-chewed tomatoes to the coleus that I grew from cuttings that have been fruitful and multiplied.  We have a bumper crop of cukes this year.  The soup made with buttermilk and avocado was superb, as was the gazpacho from a 1964 (no typo) Gourmet.

Here's a photo taken of my little friend.  Isn't he/she sweet?        We have another feeder in the meantime.  They always come, no matter the feeder.  I shudder to think of their long perilous journey in hurricane season.  Yet they always return.  Seems like a miracle to me, just like our weird little friendsip.


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