I grew up in Baltimore City, and my exposure to wildlife in terms of birds was either pigeons, Tweety Bird from the Warner Brothers’ cartoons, or Big Bird on Sesame Street—and he doesn’t even fly!
When my husband and I moved to our dream home more than a decade ago, we got all “birded out.” We bought a book to identify birds in Maryland; we bought binoculars, and we hung bird feeders.
We soon learned that blue jays tend to be bullies of the bird kingdom, as cardinals can also be. They try to knock other birds away from the feeders—and they are LOUD.
We also learned never to throw a ham bone out for critters in the front of our home. Because instead of getting a fox or something to run off with it, you will instead get 13 turkey buzzards all going after it at once, and then hanging around for an inordinate amount of time, waiting to see if you have anything else. Just staring…
It began to look like a Hitchcock movie. I kept my dogs in the backyard, as the birds looked like they were up for carrying anything off.
Let’s face it—I didn’t go out front until I was sure they were gone. There were a lot of them and one of me, and I wasn’t taking any chances.
One type of bird we hadn’t seen were hummingbirds. Three years ago, a butterfly bush sprouted unexpectedly and seemingly magically out of the ground where our pool once sat. It grew big, and suddenly tons of hummingbirds were flying around.
Since I love when my yard looks like the safe version of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, I decided to get hummingbird feeders. Last summer, we hung them out front next to another butterfly bush.
And we waited. And waited. And waited.
I was close to hanging a neon sign outback reading, “Free drinks out front!”
Finally, some hummingbirds figured it out and began coming by to drink a lot.
My husband and I were fascinated and thrilled watching and listening to them. So we did a couple of things: first, we read up on them.
Second, we gave them names.
Seriously. We gave them names based on different characteristics that they presented.
Funny thing is that when we hung the feeders up this year, the same birds came back. How do we know?
Because they have the same characteristics that we named them for.
The first female hummingbird, I named after comedy legend Ruth Buzzi, but we call her Buzz. Why? Because she’s the only one who when flying to the feeders and around them (and sometimes us), her wings make a buzzing sound unlike the others.
The next one, Brad named. She’s Joan Rivers. Why? Because every time she comes up to the feeders, she chirps. Then drinks. Then chirps. Then looks at us. Then chirps. Brad named her that from Joan’s famous line: “Can we talk?”
The final female is Pointer. She’s named after the Pointer Sisters who had the big ‘80s hit, “He’s So Shy.”. Why? Because she is really shy, doesn’t stay for long, and never chirps.
Yeah, Pointer is a “she,” but work with me here, people.
In the past, we’ve only seen one male. We’ve named him Bill Henrickson. Who is that? Well, since the male has three “wives” who are with him, we named him after the character portrayed by the late Bill Paxton in the series about polygamy, Big Love. He had three wives too.
Brad and I sit out front for at least a few minutes each day and watch and even talk to the birds.
The other day, I thought I saw a second male.
Oh no! What would we do? We had the perfect names for our birds, and here was another guy messing it all up.
Then Brad, who does great impressions, greeted the hummingbirds already at the feeder. He said, “Hello!” in the same voice that the late actor David L. Lander used when portraying Squiggy on the ‘70s sitcom Laverne and Shirley.
We’ve picked out some specific markings on the one male we’ve named Bill. If we see the other male again, we’re going to change their names—to Lenny (played by Michael McKean) and Squiggy.
And the feeders? We refer to them as Cheers—because it’s where everybody knows your name.
Michele “Wojo” Wojciechowski, when she’s not staring at hummingbirds for an inordinate amount of time to see if she needs to change their names, writes “Wojo’s World®” from Baltimore. She’s also the author of the award-winning humor book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter.
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