#34 - Goodwill to All

My project this winter is to keep one Anna's Hummingbird alive.

Red alert!

I'm doing it partly for the bird and partly for myself. "Chip" is becoming a pal. I love waking up on a cold, gray morning and discovering Chip made it through another brutal night and is raring to go.

Chip is the alpha male of a little band of two or three Anna's Hummingbirds spending the winter with us. There is not an iota of kindness or civility among them. 

Watching over his shoulder. He's a nervous wreck.

Chip perches all day on a nearby tree and watches for trespassers entering his huge zone of control. If one approaches, he drives it off. 

This is not pretty but it's the way things work in nature. 

I still love the little guy. 

I hope he'll survive till spring and sow some wild oats.

Chip is the first life I see in the gray gloom of morning and the last I see in the evening, as we descend into another long night.

 We see the enemy.

A few minutes ago, basking nervously in a rare shaft of winter sunshine, Chip noticed another Anna's entering the yard. 

He ascended 200 feet straight up, disappeared from view, then reappeared with a loud outburst of "chipping." 

By then he had boxed the other bird tightly into a shrub and was hovering inches from its face with a menacing display of magenta feathers.

Still, despite Chip's hostility, the interloper did get to the feeder for a drink. 

At the feeder, dripping wet, on a snowy-and-rainy morning.

Chip left his post for a moment and the juvenile female seized the opening.

This made me happy. There is plenty of juice for everyone. 

We should all share in this season of goodwill.