Today is exactly the kind of day we thought of when we had our screen porch built this summer. Beyond the protection of the roof and screen it is what we Farner kids affectionately refer to as “camping weather”; gray, drizzly and somewhere between warm and muggy and cool and damp, depending on how much you move around. The advantage of experiencing this kind of weather on my porch verses under a tarp is that we’re never in danger of springing a leak and having water run down our backs and if we get too uncomfortable, we can simply go inside.
With our hunger sated by French toast, the four of us; Dave, Izzie, Purrl and I have migrated from the kitchen onto the porch. From our protected vantage point, we can enjoy the peaceful dreariness of our back yard along with the songs of scores of songbirds. Our feeders are bustling with the usual morning crew; chickadees, titmice, house finches, cardinals and every so often a couple of hummingbirds go zipping by chirping at each other. I’ve heard people say they are only playing, but to me their play more closely resembles territorial disputes as they manuever around each other, one in hot pursuit of the other. I’ve often wondered why they make hummingbird feeders with so many portals, I’ve never seen them share a feeder. Instead, it seems as though whenever a second bird appears, “play” begins.
Considering their size, our hummers are fearless. When I first put my feeders out and began to feed them, I assumed they were timid and would be fearful of the larger birds. Not so. It’s almost as if they consider us so clumsy and slow in our mass, that we larger creatures are incapable of threatening them at all. Bees on the other hand, are another story.
There is fierce competition this time of year between the birds and the bees at my hummingbird feeders. I find it ironic that the bees are collecting cane sugar-water to produce their natural sweetener but bee keepers have explained that even they will put out the sugar-water for their bees this time of year as the flowers begin to diminish. And so the battle rages for nectar dominance with the hummingbirds often falling victim to bee stings.
I usually prepare my nectar in a four to one ratio; one cup of sugar to four cups of water but lately I’ve heard I should increase the amount of sugar this time of year to provide extra calories to my little friends as they prepare to migrate south. Now that I no longer have children to prepare to head off to college, it seems only natural that I help something else prepare for migration. In another four weeks or so we’ll have new visitors from the north and then soon they’ll all be gone for the winter, joining the millions of birds and retired folk heading to warmer weather.
As for me, I’ll still be enjoying my Saturday mornings on my porch, wrapped in the stillness of the yard as the day begins and focusing on just how good it all is.