Apparently, Randa and I are now feeding approximately half of the hummingbird population in northwest Missouri.

Whereas in previous years, we had to refill the little feeders about once a week or so, it is becoming a daily duty now. As we finished our breakfast on the porch this morning, I reluctantly volunteered to refill the southeast feeder. “That one needs cleaning out,” Randa said, in that wonderful blend of observation, suggestion and request that women have cultivated for a few thousand years. “OK,” I replied in the male response born of similar duration, “I’ll clean it out and then fill it up.” Even though I obviously would never end a sentence with a preposition in formal exchange, I do indulge from time to time in the intimacy of my own home, which is also where I clean the hummingbird feeder.

Randa continued her morning preparations for the workday while I cleaned and then filled the sugar water dispenser.

I returned to the corner in which bee balm and butterfly bush have grown with great enthusiasm. Just as I started to step up into the stone-walled planter, I noticed a fluttering among the low branches of the bee balm. I stood fascinated as a hummingbird worked the red tube petals. It was beautiful, with black and yellow stripes around its abdomen and a bit of pink showing in the beating of its wings. It moved from flower to flower, working around each cluster, tiny beak popping in and out of the stems, its antennae brushing against the blossoms.

“That’s odd,” I thought, “I didn’t know that hummingbirds have antennae.”

Being the exceptionally quick thinker that I am, it only took a few more moments for me to realize that I was seeing the hummingbird moth that Randa told me she had seen a week or two earlier. Or at least a similar specimen to the one that she’d described. Exercising another carefully cultivated male trait, I’d argued with her that those only existed in exotic places like South America and Hawaii or something. She merely smiled and nodded, “Uhmm.”

Sometimes it takes some spectacular encounter with beauty for us to admit truth, I reckon. I’d have to say that seeing a hummingbird moth is certainly much more enticing than getting hit over the head with a two-by-four. Either way, though, if we go about our duties and keep our eyes open, there is no limit to the number of ways by which we may be amazed.

H. Arnett
7/14/10