Perhaps they are of a time, as DH Lawrence says:
Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems
But this year, they were late, by three days (from last
year's entry). And I was impatient. I had filled and put out both hummingbird
feeders almost two weeks ago, but it wasn't until today that The Girls and I
saw the very first one. It appears that we may only have one or two right now -
perhaps they were not in a hurry to move north, because of the warmer winter? -
but soon the community will be thriving. I have learned that I can estimate how
many hummingbirds we actually have: I count the number seen on the feeders at
any one time and multiply by 6. That would suggest that in the height of
summer, we likely have a community of more than 50 living in our nearby woods.
And I'd say that's quite a lot.
