I have a hummingbird feeder.* I haven’t had one in years, and even back then I didn’t pay much attention to it before the snow and ice of a Durango winter destroyed it. Now I have a new one in my kitchen bay window. It started out with only one lonely bird about the size of the bishop on my chessboard. It’s bill was almost as long as it was tall. Delicate and thirsty, it came a dozen times a day. They say their wings beat at close to 200 times a minute to keep them afloat. I got tired just thinking about that. Only that one came for over a week. It was like he wore repulsion spray. I was really surprised we didn’t’ have more? Could it be that they were endangered in my neighborhood? Was the “hooch” not up to par? Did I need to provide bar stool seating for them? Nope. The bird grapevine just takes a while to get the word out. Now there’s dozens of multicolored birds flitting about almost all day long. I can’t imagine where they come from and how they hide out so well. It’s also a shock that they’re thirstier than Dean Martin* on a Saturday night, and will drain the 24-ounce bottle in a couple of days. They’re all belly up to the bar and on a sugar high now…and all the sweetness is in the sugar…not the birds. Today one started to sit in an adjacent tree as a guard and then attacks any other bird that comes to have a drink. He’s a hotheaded redhead and pretty rude, and doesn’t seem to like anyone but a few special ones…hot females I suspect. I guess he’s been hired as the bouncer. He was pretty successful for quite a while until a tougher bird came along and “schooled him”* in a more social behavior. I haven’t seen him lately, and I suspect he’s “on the wagon”* or maybe under it somewhere. It’s become so popular that we’ve been forced to have a grand opening of a new location (away from our door so we can once again get in the house without having to contact flight control tower.) Anyway, it’s time to climb the rickety ladder and hang 20 feet in the air from my fingernails on the second story while I try to take the bottle down for a refill of sugar water. I wonder how fast I’d have to flap my arms to stay up in the air like these little dudes do. FOR THOSE READERS UNDER 40 years of age:
*Hummingbird feeders are what we watched as teens back in the 1950s instead of video games and computer porn. They are essentially useless as are the hummingbirds who do a very poor job of humming any tune that you’d want to recognize. I’d recommend Spotify or Pandora for that instead perhaps. *Dean Martin is a comedic actor and singer whose main “schtick”* was being an alcoholic sloppy drunk all the time. Yes, I know using alcoholic and actor in the same sentence is a bit of a tautology, but I just feel the burning need to do that sometimes. *Schtick is a word used to describe a “routine” persona on stage. *On the wagon is a phrase used by people (obviously much older than I am) to indicate they were no longer consuming alcohol. I suspect you got on the wagon by being passed out drunk and taken to jail in it. *“Schooled” in this context basically means to beat the snot out someone. I know it’s difficult to understand in the context of modern education where violence in schools never occurs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Greg
|