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by David McGrath
This is getting serious. Tuesday I filled the hummingbird feeder, which is a particularly large
model that holds over a quart of sugar juice. Friday, today, it is already empty. It used to
last two weeks.
As I stood on the ladder to take down the feeder, clean it, and refill it, four hummingbirds
darted by my head.
Later this morning, I am watching 4, 5, and now 6 of the tiny birds circling the feeder. As
many as 4 would land and feed at one time, as long as the maverick birds weren't there. The
mavericks are aggressive hummers (males, I assume) who will not allow anyone else to feed
when they are around. One maverick hummer will hover and strike at the incoming until
they all retreat, and only then will he drink himself. If a rogue again approaches, maverick
darts out and bumps chests with him or stabs him with his bill.
The mavericks don't look different from the others except that they are stouter, doubtlessly
bursting with sugar juice that’s making them high. A sugar rage.
If you’ve never seen a humming bird, it’s because they are so small: about two and half inches
from head to tail. They’re brown with greenish trim, with a ruby red throat that resembles a
bib.
What is prominent when they’re perched is their long beak, like a swordfish bill, which they
insert into a flower’s “bowl” to draw nectar, or which they dip into the orifice of a man-made
feeder (usually painted red and resembling a tubular flower), to suck up sugar water.
What is prominent when they fly is the motor fast thrumming of their wings, whose speed
and vibration cause the peculiar humming sound. And with such wing speed, they can hover
in the air like a helicopter, not prostrate like Superman, but perpendicular the way the Peace
Dove is often depicted.
Envision, for a moment, a brown bear with his back to a tree, fighting off 5 or 6 barking
dogs. The way the bear stays put and paws at or lunges at individual dogs, is similar to the
way the maverick hummer hovers over my feeder, his wings fanning in a blur, as he guards
his position and thrusts at any intruder.
I need not even watch—can interpret the skirmishes by their sound. The humming grows in
volume as an attacker plummets from the sky, and then there's the sudden pop and bang-
buzz as the maverick intercepts the intruder. Like when you’re on a two lane highway,
hearing the escalating whine of an oncoming semi-tractor trailer that finally explodes in a
windy roar next to you, and then instantly dissipates into a diminishing drone as the truck
disappears the opposite way.
Friday afternoon my feeder is empty. And there sure as hell is no leak.
Dozens of hummers are circling the feeder, dozens more circling the house. You can hear
humming from every room. Frank, my yellow lab whom thunder and lightning never fazed,
hides under a table.
I go back up the ladder and fill the feeder wearing my bicycle helmet. As I clean up the
pitcher and the funnel I used to blend food for the feeder, the humming spasmodically
erupts into screeches. I finish in the kitchen and go to the window to see only one ounce left
in the feeder. But even more shocking are about two dozen humming birds, mostly stout,
helicoptering outside the windows, looking in.
I don't want to go up the ladder, so I fill several pots and pans with water and mix in sugar,
stirring with the big soup ladle. I set them just outside the screen door and slam it shut.
Frank is whimpering.
I go to bookcase and pull out the field guide to consult on humming bird behavior, when I
hear clanging and wood crunching sounds out front. I drop the book and go to the phone to
call someone, anyone, 9-1-1, and then there's an awful snarl like a chainsaw where I left the
pots and pans. I hang on to the phone--it's ringing on the other end--and I walk to the front to
see that a top-to-bottom seam has been ripped into screen door, and the birds are careening
in, swooping and dive-bombing in the family room. Frank is in a corner, growling and
snapping at the birds, tiny red feathers on his nose and his head. I put down the phone and
grab for flyswatter hanging on the wall, and, wait, oh no, please...
ABOUT:
David McGrath's stories and essays have appeared wherever he's been
able to trick people into printing them, such as at the Chicago Tribune,
Artful Dodge, Paumanok Review, L.A. Times, Fourth Genre, Sport
Literate,and Chicago Reader. His novel SIEGE AT OJIBWA is available on
Amazon.com.
NOTE: "The way that America's foreign policy (aid tied to political meddling)has been
backfiring lately, like the homeowner's feeding of the birds,was the reason for the title."
