Being an ardent bird freak, I thoroughly related to your story. But it also made me just a tiny bit sad because it reminded me how much I miss hummingbirds.

One of the very few things that I like about where I currently live on the Great Plains of Turtle Island is the rich variety of bird life. The birds have saved me from going cuckoo. But in the seven years and ten days that I’ve been stuck here I have never seen one single solitary hummingbird. Not one. I really miss them.

Even when I lived high, high up in the Rocky Mountains I saw hummingbirds on a regular basis. On the sills of the windows by my writing desk I had several potted crown of thorns cacti. They produce tiny red flowers for a good part of the year. So many times I was distracted from my writing by a hummingbird hovering just outside of the window wanting to get at those wonderful red flowers but unable to do so because of the glass. I had a hummingbird feeder hanging from the pine tree but those hummers really, really wanted to get to my cactus flowers.

I often fantasized about opening the windows and taking out the screens so that the hummingbirds could come inside and sup on those flowers. I never did it, though. To have hummingbirds helicoptering in the house would have seriously freaked out the dog and cat.