Winter Jewels

Winter in western Oregon is a palette of monotones. The sky is gray, the rain is gray, the ground is gray, the ocean and rivers are gray. Gray everywhere. It's enough to make anyone hide indoors until May, and some people do just that. If you look closely, though, there might be precious jewels in your yard, even in the winter.

The last thing I do each night is listen for the overnight weather forecast on the ten o'clock news. If the temperature is predicted to drop below freezing, I set my alarm for fifteen minutes before dawn. When the alarm goes off, I sneak out onto the back deck in my pajamas and wiggle my hummingbird feeder to make sure it hasn't frozen overnight. Even at that early hour, even in the cold, I often hear one of the two Anna's hummingbirds which have wintered in my yard. They "chip-chip-chip" at me, alarmed at this giant who is messing around with their feeder. Twice so far this winter I did find the freezer frozen, and on those days I had to switch it for a fresh feeder and fresh nectar, which I make weekly and store in the refrigerator. One of those mornings the freeze had caught me unprepared, and by the time I got out to the deck it was well after dawn and the hummingbirds were buzzing around the feeder impatiently, unable to get any sustenance from the frozen nectar. I rushed the spare feeder out, and was barely able to get it hung before the birds were drinking hungrily.

Today the sky is blue, a rare thing in Oregon in February, and when I went outside to fill the male Anna's was feeding at the feeder. He turned his head to look at he, and he hovered for just a few seconds. As he turned, his head caught the sun and his ruby hood gleamed so brilliantly it took my breath away. The female doesn't have a ruby hood, but she wears a ruby pendant around her neck. I call them my winter jewels, and never once have I regretted my early morning trips to make sure they are supplied with ice-free nectar. They repay me just by being there.

This is the first year that hummingbirds have wintered in my yard. In Portland we have two species of hummingbirds: the rufous hummingbird, which migrates south in the winter, and the Anna's hummingbird, which is resident year-round. If the temperatures drop below a comfortable hummingbird level, these amazing little birds go into "torpor," where they conserve energy by allowing their body temperature to drop and their metabolism to slow down. In the morning, as the sun rises, they come out of torpor and resume feeding. In my yard, my two Anna's feed every few minutes throughout the day. They will occasionally chase each other away from the feeder, or even out of the yard, and then ten minutes later they'll both be back, sitting one above the other in the same tree. According to the book "Hummingbird Gardens," by Nancy Newfield and Barbara Nielsen, Anna's go through courtship during November and December and then begin nesting in the spring. I am hopeful that the two which are in my yard are a mated pair, but I won't know for sure until nesting season begins in March.

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