My eight-year-old
daughter, Anika, and I got a hummingbird feeder on Saturday and hung it up on
our patio. We’ve been talking about getting one for a long time. Hummingbirds
remind Anika of her Grandma, my mother, who passed away a couple years ago, just before Anika turned six.
Anika’s memories of
Grandma are fading. But Grandma's hummingbirds she remembers clearly. Grandma
always had hummingbird feeders on her back porch, where Anika spent many summer
days rocking in rocking chairs, talking to her Grandma and watching
hummingbirds swarm in for sips of the sweet nectar Grandma made for them.
Hummingbirds are amazing creatures… they can flap their wings up to 200 times per second … they’re the only birds that can fly backwards.
The man at the bird store told us that we shouldn’t have any trouble attracting hummingbirds. We have a half-dozen or so flowering azalea bushes next to the patio and a patch of woods just past the back yard. But, still, I was nervous. What if no hummingbirds came? I know my daughter well enough to know that she would take it in stride. It was a fun afternoon activity, after all. We tried.
But I wanted hummingbirds. I know it sounds silly. I also want there to be a rainbow after every thunderstorm and the goldfish to live and to really be able to make boo boos go away with a kiss and to push the clouds away… but sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing and I’ve lived in the city for so long I can’t really claim to be a country boy anymore and what do I know about birds any way and what do I know about raising a little girl….
But, it didn’t take long after we mixed the combination of sugar and water and hung the feeder on the ceiling of the patio for the first hummingbird to come take a sip. Anika spotted him before I did. Whew… what a relief. She and I did a little celebratory dance. In the few short days since then, there have been several hummingbirds to come visit us.
A part of me would like to believe that the hummingbirds were sent down from Anika’s Grandma herself… as her way of saying hello and to check in on her grandbaby.
And, just maybe, to remind her youngest boy that he’s doing an okay job.
Hummingbirds are amazing creatures… they can flap their wings up to 200 times per second … they’re the only birds that can fly backwards.
The man at the bird store told us that we shouldn’t have any trouble attracting hummingbirds. We have a half-dozen or so flowering azalea bushes next to the patio and a patch of woods just past the back yard. But, still, I was nervous. What if no hummingbirds came? I know my daughter well enough to know that she would take it in stride. It was a fun afternoon activity, after all. We tried.
But I wanted hummingbirds. I know it sounds silly. I also want there to be a rainbow after every thunderstorm and the goldfish to live and to really be able to make boo boos go away with a kiss and to push the clouds away… but sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing and I’ve lived in the city for so long I can’t really claim to be a country boy anymore and what do I know about birds any way and what do I know about raising a little girl….
But, it didn’t take long after we mixed the combination of sugar and water and hung the feeder on the ceiling of the patio for the first hummingbird to come take a sip. Anika spotted him before I did. Whew… what a relief. She and I did a little celebratory dance. In the few short days since then, there have been several hummingbirds to come visit us.
A part of me would like to believe that the hummingbirds were sent down from Anika’s Grandma herself… as her way of saying hello and to check in on her grandbaby.
And, just maybe, to remind her youngest boy that he’s doing an okay job.
