In anticipation! and welcome!

With less than a week left in April, I'd say it's officially "late April." According  to Minnesota Seasons, that means we can anticipate the arrival of male ruby-throated hummingbirds anytime soon. As much as I love the arrival of waterfowl and wading birds such as Canada geese and sandhill cranes, I am constantly delighted and amazed by the arrival of tiny sparks of life embodied in hummingbirds.

male ruby-throated hummingbird, mid-May

Photo by J. Harrington

If we get a  foot or so of snow anytime over the next couple of weeks, feel free to blame me and the hummingbirds for  our  optimism. I filled and hung a couple of feeders, based largely on the report of a hummingbird having been sighted today at Maiden Rock, WI.

Journey North web site

It'll probably be a week or two, or more, before a grape jelly feeder goes up for Baltimore orioles, but it's really encouraging to feel that we're coming into Spring instead of just out of Winter. Turning that corner at the end of this years Earth Week, more of us may be able to admit that some things in this world simply arrive as gifts and our responsibility is to pay attention and enjoy them and be thankful that they're sharing their lives with ours.

Think about this for a moment: in a universe whose very existence some find improbable, during a span of time beyond my comprehension, an improbable life such as mine, or yours, crosses that of an even less probable hummingbird so sometimes both arrive together in the same place and the same time in an impossibly huge universe is miraculous, isn't it? Looking at the size and duration of the universe, what's the probability of you or I seeing a hummingbird within arm's reach? But it happens. It's a gift from the universe to us.

“Hummingbirds”

by Mary Oliver

The female, and two chicks,

each no bigger than my thumb,

scattered,

shimmering

in their pale-green dresses;

then they rose, tiny fireworks,

into the leaves

and hovered;

then they sat down,

each one with dainty, charcoal feet –

each one on a slender branch –

and looked at me.

I had meant no harm,

I had simply

climbed the tree

for something to do

on a summer day,

not knowing they were there,

ready to burst the ledges

of their mossy nest

and to fly, for the first time,

in their sea-green helmets,

with brisk, metallic tails –

each tulled wing,

with every dollop of flight,

drawing a perfect wheel

across the air.

Then, with a series of jerks,

they paused in front of me

and, dark-eyed, stared –

as though I were a flower –

and then,

like three tosses of silvery water,

they were gone.

Alone,

in the crown of the tree,

I went to China,

I went to Prague;

I died, and was born in the spring;

I found you, and loved you, again.

Later the darkness fell

and the solid moon

like a white pond rose.

But I wasn’t in any hurry.

Likely I visted all

the shimmering, heart-stabbing

questions without answers

before I climbed down.

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