Morning, Coffee, and Hummingbirds.

I like to get up early, before anyone else. At least I have convinced myself it is by choice, it might be the curse of my Mother and Aunt (who was like a second mother). They were raised during hard times, and spent many years working as waitresses. Often their working shifts would start early for the breakfast crowd. It seems that it became habit, and I would tease them, laughing about the hours they kept. Now, those are the hours I keep. And I can’t help but wonder if they are somehow responsible, in some heavenly reward, which they both deserve, drinking heavenly coffee and laughing quietly at me as I talk about how much I enjoy the solitude of early morning. “He who laughs last, laughs loudest,” I guess.

This morning, I decided to mix pleasure with pleasure, so to speak. I brought my coffee, my iPad, my phone and my camera out to the deck to hunt the elusive hummingbird. 

Hummingbirds are fast, lightning fast, changing directions in a microsecond, stopping, hovering, and zooming off. Science fiction alive and well in the animal kingdom.

I remember the first time I saw a hummingbird. It came buzzing in, sounding like a flight of angry hornets. A terrifying buzzing with no distinct point of origin. It echoed off the walls, filled the patio, surrounding me with a terrifying, inhuman sound right out of the apocalypse. “Look at the size of that bee!” I told my wife, grabbing my chair to fend it off, thinking about throwing my wife as a sacrifice so I could make my escape. She would understand.

“That’s a hummingbird.” She said, with the practiced patience she has developed over the years. 

Sure enough, it was a gentle, dainty little bird, flitting gracefully from flower to flower, drinking and moving on. I fell in love. It was the most amazing animal I had ever seen. It sat, mid air, wings beating so fast they were a blur, long beak dipping into the small flowers, drinking and moving on. It was the most delicate, beautiful scene. My wife buys flowers she knows they like, just to keep them coming. She knows how much I enjoy seeing them.

Last year I got a hummingbird feeder for my birthday, and a friend of my wife’s makes a magic elixir of sugar and water, boiled, refrigerated, and irresistible to hummingbirds. They stop all day, have a drink, flit among the flowers and speed off. Today, I managed to get a picture of one, having a drink.