they'd still battle to the death, determined to claim the lot

Sometimes the Hummingbird Wars 

 

occur on the front porch of our Lake 

Superior cabin, and although it's 

not a war we support, we're the ones 

 

who incite it because we put out the 

sugar water feeders they love, ones 

with red bases and red sugar water, 

 

since we believe they like that best, 

and even if we filled three separate 

feeders for three hummers, they'd 

 

still battle to the death, determined 

to claim the lot. Wings humming eighty

times a second, these dive bombers fly 

 

left, right, up, down, and even upside 

down to attack all foes. They give wide 

berth only to bees, and sometimes one 

 

mother will share the same feeder 

with her fledglings, but today, a 

female hummer, full long ago, perches 

 

on our thistle-seed feeder (for goldfinch 

and chickadees) to chase away interlopers. 

Mid-afternoon, she gets sleepy and dozes 

 

off, catching herself just before she falls. 

Any day now, these little bits of winged 

feathers will disappear for their long 

 

journey to a warmer climate, flying five 

hundred miles non-stop across the Gulf of 

Mexico to continue their warfare abroad. 

 

[Jill Breckenridge, 'Sometimes the Hummingbird Wars', from Sometimes: Poems]