Ecosystem
Meanwhile, back in the real world, I have hummingbird feeders on our upper deck. Our house is built into a hillside, and the main story is actually a second story, so the convenient deck right near the kitchen is a good 15 feet over the back yard. The deck is inaccessible to cats, and the flashes of cheap red plastic, so attractive a color to the hummingbirds, are visible from two streets away. It is a hummingbird utopia. I began with one 15-ounce feeder about five years ago when I noticed hummingbirds in my yard, and quickly had to move up to a 30-ounce feeder when they started emptying the 15-ouncer in less than a day.
This summer I had to add a fourth 30-ounce feeder, as the birds were draining three of them by four in the afternoon. I also cable-tied some twiggy branches to my deck for more comfortable perching. I refill the feeders between every day and every other day, so they're going through between 90 and 120 ounces of sugar water a day, and I use about two cups of sugar a day feeding them. I've actually seen 30 birds at once (all 24 feeding stations filled, plus two in the air, plus four on the perches) and I suspect there are quite a few more. It's marvelous madness to sit out on the deck and watch them swooping, zooming, and hovering curiously right in front of my face, looking into my eyes.
I take the feeders as a serious responsibility. I've changed the local ecosystem. Just a few years ago, our neighborhood could never have supported this many hummingbirds. I've created a tiny, one-house wildlife preserve, and I want it to remain one. Hummingbirds need to eat about every ten minutes to support their intense metabolisms. The feeders have to be full, and fresh. They can't be allowed to go moldy or to ferment, so the birds don't get sick, or leave the area looking for better fare. I wash the feeders out with a bleach solution once a week or so to degunk. I arrange for a friend to replenish the feeders if we go on vacation, and my only post-mortem request to nj is that he keep the feeders going if I die first.
The only bit of trouble in this fabulous, flitting Shangri-la is that yellow jackets also like sugar water. They were particularly active this past autumn. Yellow jackets are not creatures I'm happy about attracting, especially with my own insect-sting allergy, and a two-year-old daughter to protect.
So right around the corner from the feeders, I've hung a yellow jacket trap, and I change the attractant once a month to keep them crawling in. It seems to control their numbers nicely. And now it looks like I have a little help in the good fight.
This morning I noticed a very large spider web strung across the deck, between the feeders and the yellow jacket trap, and was privileged enough to see the biggest, baddest, fattest, hardest mother-fuckin' garden spider EVER. If She played an instrument, it would be the big taiko drum. If She worked construction, She'd use a jackhammer. If She played pro, She'd be a football offense forward. If She were in a crime family, her job would be "cleaner." But no, She's a spider. She takes out YELLOW JACKETS for a living. The yellow jacket in her web was absolutely furious, buzzing with all its strength, ripping the web as it jerked back and forth, but She was too quick for it. It stabbed the air around the spider with its ass, stinger at the ready, but She was EXPERIENCED. She held the yellow jacket in a death clinch from the front so it couldn't reach her, no matter how violently it struggled, and She just kept slinging her silk, wrapping it, and wrapping it. The yellow jacket was nearly as large as She, but She still managed to haul it off.
Man. I am so lucky that She's on our side.