The rainy days of early summer
While the planet as a whole has continued to heat up,
increasing its insistence via extreme weather events that humans really do need
to “pay attention already, dammit!”, Illinois has been in its very own extremely deep pocket of coolish, rainy weather. It’s easy to notice conditions are far from normal when the basil in your raised bed is not growing with its normal exuberance, while the lettuce, normally starting to bolt already, continues lush and sweet; you put the tomato starts in on July 1
st, a month
overdue, because the soil in your allotment is just too wet; and when traveling
in mid-June to help with a bioblitz at the
Dixon Waterfowl Refuge on the Illinois river, you notice that fields where corn and soy should be growing are
vast shallow ponds, some with ducks.
Just how rainy? According to the
Illinois State Climatologist, an average of 9.3 inches made this the rainiest June in
official record-keeping history (which only goes back to 1895, but still). And
he asks us to note that seven of the last eight Junes have been rainier than
average (4.09 inches) and that seven of the ten rainiest Junes on record
have occurred since 1993.
Perhaps
it’s a trend.
This June was so outstanding in its overall wetness that not
only was it the rainiest for us, but Illinois was the rainiest state in the
entire continental US. And July is continuing with more of the same. Odd to
think that just three years ago I was
biking to work in the midst of intense heat and drought. I won’t discuss destabilized jet streams or the polar
vortices of the past two winters. More of us need to be paying serious
attention, and taking action at every level.
So, about the hummingbirds
The other morning I was looking at a robin perched on the
dead branch at the top of my neighbor’s apple tree two doors down, where the
birds like to gather in groups of several species to take the air and discuss
current events. Through the binoculars, what had appeared to be a bump on a
large twig resolved into a hummingbird. This year, my next-door neighbor Muriel
and I have been seeing two of them around since late April. They must be a
mating pair, though at this point the female, identified by the lack of a red
patch on her throat, is raising her clutch of two chicks on her own, and they
should be flying soon, if not already.
I often see her—or possibly a juvenile—and after demonstrating
her flight skills around our yards for a while, she usually disappears into one
of the tall silver maple, honey locust or elm trees in the back yards across
the alley and on that street. This is the first year that hummers have been
around during mating season—that we’ve seen, anyway. Since Muriel first put up
feeders in 2008, and we started our project more formally in 2009, they’d only
appeared during the late summer-to-fall migration period. Our project is described
here on this page.
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| "Ruby Throated Hummingbird" by Joe Schneid, Louisville, KY |
To those who reside in western states where multiple species
congregate, or in less urban parts of our area, boasting multiple pairs
visiting feeders, this would be no big deal. And ruby throats are in no way
endangered or unusual. Yet considering that until we set out to attract them, not
one had been seen on our block for a minimum of twenty years, it’s pretty
exciting for us. We provided habitat, and two feeders (now reduced to one); they
stopped by during migration, and now appear to have decided to nest. It’s a
thrill to stand by a patch of scarlet beebalm
(Monarda didyma) and see a hummer
hovering right there, not two feet away, sipping nectar from the tubular
flowers most conveniently designed to suit its needs and preferences. Ain’t
co-evolution grand!
I wonder what the process was and how they finally decided
to settle in for the summer. Have we by this point planted enough of the right
flowers? Did juveniles who stopped by last year during fall migration decide to
return here for mating this year? Were they here all along and we just never
saw them? That I doubt. We’ve both been keeping close watch for six years now.
If they come back next spring, I’ll consider our whole
project a success.
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Comments
Yes, it really is nice to have a co-gardener next door. We've been trading plants for many years, and of course our two small gardens act like one larger garden--good for pollinators!
Hi Jean, I'm glad you have hummers visiting you. I'm sure your garden is very attractive to them. They also like to eat insects, particularly annoying ones such as mosquitoes and gnats, so they're very beneficial to have around in general.