I love hummingbirds. All facts about them astound me. I once sat stunned under a feeder as one buzzed the top of my head repeatedly. My wincing face portrayed my certainty that the pointed beak at the end of those deafening wing-beats was going to bore holes in my irises!
There is one hummingbird I am not crazy about. I call him Dive Bomber. I buy the sugar, I pay for the water, and I clean and refill the feeders every couple days. HE drinks the syrup then stands guard beside it and dive bombs any other birds that mistakenly think I refilled the feeder for just any ole’ hummingbird.
I’m camping at a KOA in the desert. It’s 90 degrees out and there’s a pool, so my new friend Mary and I take the kids out for a swim. The kind owners of the campground have provided 2 large canopies for patrons to enjoy by the pool. They are the only shade. One of them covers a large laughing family. The other shades 4 lounge chairs covered with towels. Dive Bomber is lounging in the sun beside the canopy, flexing his bulging, tattooed muscles and frequently dousing himself in sunscreen.
Mary and I grab chairs across the pool and head for the vacant canopy. Mary greets him cheerfully and courteously asks if we can shade up under this cover. He says, “We actually came here early so we could use one of these. You just can’t mosey over here when people are already here. That’s pretty rude.” He flexed his pects and returned to next months edition of Self Magazine.
He probably has never conceived the thought that he consumes less than 1% of the contents of the feeder. Nor that if he dared to leave his post he would be stunned to find a world of wonders: fuschias, butterfly bushes, columbine, honeysuckle, new friendships… the list is endless. For hours and hours, his family used the canopy for less than an hour total, but, don’t touch my feeder, that’s pretty rude!
Father, please open my eyes to my Dive Bomber tendencies.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/buff/