From the Desk of the Editor of the Hummingbird-Human Hybrid Society Bulletin-Gazette

A hummingbird kept buzzing me by the creek yesterday. I was wondering what was making that loud episodic humming all around and above me and couldn't see a big horsefly or fat bumblebee. Then I looked above me again one more time and there it was, a very persistent hummer.

Of course! This happens for me almost every Spring. Usually it will happen on my deck when a hummingbird zips in to hover a few feet from my face and look directly at me. Then it will fly a few meters away once or twice and return to hover near my face again. It certainly gets my happy attention, and it's obviously a reminder that it's time to put out our feeder, bud, you're late every year you know, and it's not exactly easy out here for a hummingbird especially before most plants and trees begin to flower!

Last night I dreamt of a flurry of five or six hummingbirds hovering above me in the woods, bobbing nearer and retreating slightly, all humming loudly and focusing on me. What could it possibly mean?

Thanks to yesterday's daytime and dreamtime hummingbirds, today is the first day of service of their new feeder. It holds eight ounces of nectar and needs cleaning and refreshing every week, though I manage to do so about every two weeks at best. When they visit it before I've added a new mix of nectar, they will usually sniff it or taste a little bit and then tentatively zip away, pausing to give me a disappointed look or a glance back in pity in my imagination.

Once it's summer, I'll eventually need a firm reminder again that it's time to add more nectar to the feeder because you have no idea how unbearable it is for us hummingbirds in temperatures of 110 and we don't have air conditioners or refrigerators you know, just because you pamper yourselves with grocery items and roofs and such doesn't mean some of us aren't out here working the land like The Great Hummer intended.

Will you fly a mile in our wings for goodness' sake? We do get tired and parched, you know.

Hopefully I'll dream of hummingbirds again and fly along with them some night. They're certainly welcome anytime.  I hope I'll be to them.