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   My wife and I both enjoy bird watching, especially the hummingbirds and orioles. Knowing this, our son, Damon got my wife a gadget to enhance hummingbird viewing. It consists of a face shield, similar to ones worn by workers in dentist offices. This also includes artificial flowers attached to the front that have tubes to hold sugar water. The object is to load your flowers and sit quietly waiting for the hummingbirds to come and eat a couple of inches in front of your face. Earlier this spring, my wife and I both tried it out with no success. The little hummers would fly by and never stop to check out our face feeders.

   Yesterday, I decided to give it another try. This spring, the birds were more skittish and not entirely sure if we were safe to be around. After a few weeks, they have become more accustomed to our coming and going. We spend a lot of time on the porch, working or reading so the hummingbirds see us daily. I loaded the flowers with hummingbird food and sat in their traffic pattern. They fly by on the way to their regular feeder giving me only a passing glance. A person can only sit perfectly still for so long before a body starts cramping up and rebelling. I knew this was not going to work. It finally dawned on me, there was no reason to look for nectar from my artificial flowers when their regular feeder with all the food they need is only a couple of feet away. I took the feeder down and sat it on the table. I then stood near where their feeder had hung. Within a couple of minutes, two hummingbirds were checking me out. Finally, one came up and got a drink. Watching a hummingbird as it feeds from only a couple of inches from one’s nose is fascinating even if it does cause a person to become a bit cross-eyed from trying to focus at that close range.

   We were excited to see the first Baltimore oriole show up this spring. We promptly put out a dish of grape jelly to welcome them. For the first few days, we saw only one male. Before long, his mate showed up. A few days later, two more pairs we coming to the jelly feeder. Yesterday afternoon, I saw five males at one time arguing over the jelly, so we know we have at least ten orioles depending on us for a steady source of grape jelly. A gallon of grape jelly will currently last about two weeks if I bring the feeders inside every night and take them out in the morning, so the raccoons don’t eat it. If these five pairs each hatch four babies, we will soon have twenty-five mouths to feed. When the population becomes that dense, I think I will be required to wean the whole flock so they can learn to eat what nature designed them to eat. I do not know what they eat in the wild, but I do know it is not grape jelly. The young will have to learn to forage for themselves as they may not find people as generous as me as they migrate south this winter.

   Whether sitting around looking goofy with a hummingbird feeding face shield or just watching the orioles fight over the endless supply of grape jelly, we enjoy the time spent outdoors watching the birds.

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