A couple of months ago, on a warm August afternoon, I watched a hummingbird from my window.  It was smaller than my thumb, and it hovered and levitated, the motor of its tiny wings a blue blur, as it looked for nectar in the wild flowers just outside of my cabin. 

Around here, you don’t see hummingbirds in the winter.  They migrate south, to Mexico and Panama, as far as 2500 miles. Hormonal changes brought about by decreasing amounts of daylight tell them when it is time to go.  For some, the migration path takes them over the Gulf of Mexico, or about 500 miles of non-stop flying.  Predators are numerous, from the many birds of prey to bats and cats to even spiders and insects.  Hummingbirds typically migrate alone.  

I put this down so I don’t forget about that hummingbird and the blue blur of its wings and the long and perilous and solitary journey that brought it, on that late summer afternoon, to the wild flowers by my cabin at the precise time I happened to look out my window.