NATURE

Hummingbirds and Me

It’s a complicated relationship

Nothing about hummingbirds makes sense.

Something that small should be way down the food chain, but they live a conspicuous high-speed lifestyle with a next-level color scheme. Forget muted tones to evade predators.

“Hey, I glow like a goddamn nuclear explosion in a paint store, and I don’t care ’cause bitch you can eat my dust. I can fly forward, backward, side to side, and good luck keeping up. You want to make a meal out of me? Go ahead and take your best shot, asshole.”

You can doll it up as much as you want when you’re too fast to be food.

To be clear, I don’t know that’s how hummingbirds talk. But I’ve seen them face-to-face, and they certainly have the look. Twenty pounds of attitude in a tenth of an ounce container. It’s time to drop the majestic bald eagle as our national bird. This is ’Murica, dammit. We ought to be represented by something that doesn’t give a shit about your feelings and eats sugar all day.

I hang a feeder outside the family room, and somehow those rice-sized brains have figured out I’m the sugar water daddy. When it’s empty, they buzz over and stare in. It’s way more menacing than something that size should be able to pull off.

I was standing by the window the other day, and a hummingbird was hovering just on the other side of the glass. Our eyes met, and I realized the feeder was empty. I immediately dropped what I was doing and refilled it.

However, it was not because I was intimidated. Or was it? They’re smaller than my thumb and weigh less than a nickel. What do I have to worry about?

Here in the Seattle area, we have two main species. The Rufous hummers migrate south in the fall, which if you live here you entirely understand. Winters are cold and wet, with zero flowers. Until somebody figures out how to put sugar in the rain, this place has the drinks menu of a Nectarholics Anonymous meeting.

Which is why it’s weird the Anna’s hummers stay all year. Whoever Anna was, she must have had the mouth of a sailor and been stubborn as fuck. A metabolism like that in a cold, damp landscape with nothing in bloom seems like a seriously sketchy proposition. They can put themselves in short-term hibernation when it’s freezing cold, but why?

It’s almost like they stay out of spite. Anna, do yourself a favor. Pack a bag and hitch a ride with Rufous outta town.

But what do I know? The whole idea of a hummingbird is pretty much crazy. They might as well be extraterrestrials, with a weird diet, four-digit heart rate, neon feathers, and I’m going to go ahead and assume bad attitudes. If you were one, you’d need 150,000 calories a day. Food goes in the front and out the back in 15 minutes. A one-day fast can be a death sentence. They do what they want and flip danger the bird. They give me orders, and I follow.

“Yo, get off your fat ass, monkey boy. Put some sweet stuff in that glass thingy with the fake flowers. I’ve got some fancy flying scheduled and need a drink to eat. You think it’s easy being my bad self buzzing around with radioactive colors on? Hook me up, candy man.”

Forget being at the top of the food chain. As far as the birds are concerned, I’m the guy at the McDonald’s doling out sodas through a window. No caffeine, though. Just the sugar.

Now I gotta get on it. Bird says he’s got shit to do.

John Werth is a Medium Top Writer in Humor, Satire, and LGBTQ who describes his writing style as “You’d read this if I were famous.” He’s a nerd who plays clarinet and watches birds, and doesn’t care about your opinion of that. He’s not cool enough to refer to himself in the third person, but doesn’t care about your opinion of that, either.

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