Feeding the Birds

"The hummingbird talked to me today," my husband jokes.

"What did he say?" I ask, intrigued. 

"He said, 'Mexico was great!'"

Each year we wait for the migrants to return. My mother emails from Maryland to tell me when her hummingbirds arrive: "A day later than last year!" She says, proud she had the feeder out and ready for them. 

The birds fill my yard with such outlandish color (the center-of-the-sun-orange of the oriole, the gun-wound-red of the grosbeak, the raspberry head of the house finch) and such song (if there ever was anything upon which to base faith in a supreme being, for me it would be the simple fact that birds sing), but often I forget the most astonishing thing: it is not "the orioles" that return each spring, but this oriole, this singular one, who could have a name if I'd give him one, who comes to my 2 and 1/2 acres each year after his 1,000 mile migration. I wonder what my house looks like from above, at the end of his long journey, a night-time of straight flying: the same as it looks to me when I drive over that last incline of road after visiting my family on the coast? "Well, the house is still standing," I say to my husband each time, and he nods. We unlock the doors and resume our life. 

I wonder what this oriole's winter life is like--if some family in Mexico halves oranges and spoons grape jelly into a shallow dish and sets them out for him as I do, and which place he considers his real home.

I wonder if to him I am recognizable--the one who takes down the sweetness for a few moments every other day, then brings it out again, calling, "Food for orioles!" to the inhabitants of the yard--or whether I am just "homo sapiens," some other species, a blur whose actions he may appreciate in some basic way but not need, not love.