Keep your hummingbird feeders out a little longer, at least if you live in New England!
The last of my regular summer hummers left last week, but just now a beautiful little female dropped in. She is clearly a migrant coming down out of Canada — she fluttered around the unfamiliar feeder for a moment, trying to figure out how it worked, and then she settled on a perch and fed for about three solid minutes without fluttering a wing. The only things moving were her tongue and her throat. I didn’t move, either, so as not to scare her.
When she was finished, she zipped over to the nearest apple tree and preened for a little while, getting her feathers in order. She’s come back twice to the feeder in the last fifteen minutes. I cracked my window open even though it’s chilly out, just to hear the magic hum of her wings. It’s got to last me through a long, cold winter.
She may stay here a few hours, or a day, to replenish herself before continuing on to Mexico, or her last few sips may have been enough and she’ll head on south this afternoon. If I could transform into a hummingbird…
Oh, that’s right! Dragons are my thing.