Some Glimpses of Nature Part 1

     It-- he or she, traveling so fast I couldn't tell which -- stared straight at me as I cracked open the front door of the house to let the cat in. Sammie -- our cat, named after Samantha Brady of "Days of Our Lives" TV fame -- didn't seem to notice that barely above the hedges partly in front of the walkway in front of the house and slightly above my eye level was (gosh)  a hummingbird (we're talking back in July, not now in January). It was a female, a ruby throated hummingbird (many birds being dimorphic) looking at me. She was in her helicopterlike position, as though she were waiting for me to throw her some bread crumbs. Close to my front door is also a tall, gangly rose bush. Maybe she had tried for some nectar from those red flowers before it decided to just hover by my front door? I couldn't tell. But in 15 seconds she suddenly "zipped" away. Too bad we didn't have a feeder out front.
     Our neighbors had a tree of Sharon and a sugar water hummingbird feeder out front, but I believe they were in the process of cutting it down. After that I didn't see any more hummingbirds. They are very fast wing flappers and one wonders how they keep their energy up, especially in winter, when most of them do travel south to warmer climes. As long as we have "sugar" feeders and deep, nectar filled birds the hummingbirds will survive, though I'm also told, like other birds, they will wolf down tiny insects too. The early bird literally "does" catch the worm, and eat it too!

Seeking hummingbirds

    Most people probably think of a hummingbird as some kind of huge insect. But it "is" a bird. According to bird hobbyist Melanie Fox and a little research I have done, hummingbirds are feisty little (no, not buggers) aviary beings. Some species have been known to venture to the high American Rockies or even Alaska. In the extreme temperatures actually cause them to go into a state of "torpor" where their heart beat is a mere 60 or 70 beat a minute and they may look like they are not even alive.
     But on a late fall day over a month ago (was it early December?) I scrambled to get some clothes on after Melanie emailed me that her feeder in front of her townhouse had attracted some hummers. So I got down there just as a few even "bigger" bird hobbyists caught the hummers in this little netting they put  over a bird cagelike like device the bird feeder was in, in order to tag then release the birds. They'd had a ruby throated juvenille on hand before I got there. As I arrived they were hold a tiny "rufous" hummingbird in the netting while putting a tiny, tiny aluminum band around its tiny leg. They told me they try the following year to capture the ones with the band on the leg to see where they have been and come back to. The rufous hummingbird is normally a West coast (down to the Baja pennisula next Mexico) bird that migrates south. But sometimes, they go off course.
    The rufous hummingbird had a light gray breast, and is supposed to be brownish with maybe a drop of yellow or red on top. Birds in general are pretty fast. But watch for those house cats! We have an indoor-outdoor cat, which may be a reason we don't see too many birds outside of sparrows and a few mourning doves when the weather was warmer. Cats can be fastER sometimes. But it is interesting to learn something new about birds.