[Grovenet] Hummingbird Lessons

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Almost every morning a little drama takes place at the hummingbird feeder
just outside the kitchen window. 

One hummer will approach for a "fill up". Hummers are huge energy users,
burning more energy per moment of flight than any other bird. They have to
refill their energy reserves constantly or they'll not have enough to
sustain themselves. So they awake from their nightly near-hibernation
ravenous and ready for a drink. 

But just as the first hummer arrives to take up one of the half-dozen
drinking positions at the feeder, another swoops down out of the sky to
drive him away. 

Hummers are awfully territorial critters.

Cobi keeps the feeder filled. It's never run dry. Not even when the storm
winds howl snapping off tall trees like matchsticks does it ever run dry,
swinging on its branch sheltered by the house outside our kitchen window.
Clearly hummers don't understand how much is there, nor do they seem to
care. What they care about is keeping all that is there for themselves. 

Hummers expend huge amounts of energy just to drive other hummers away from
the feeder. That means they are more desperate than ever to keep what's
there for themselves: they have to spend so much energy 'defending' it. 

Like hummers, we Americans have spent so much energy defending our resources
that we've almost bankrupted ourselves. Our feeder is nearly empty and we
have no idea when or how it might be filled again. 

Unlike hummers, we can find alternative sources of energy and learn how to
use them. 

Unlike hummers, we do not have to beat our wings furiously. 

We can find other ways to get were we need to go. 

Or do we want to trust that someone will magically take care of our needs so
that we can continue our useless squabbles and waste our resources trying to
keep others from having their share? Even if the answer is "yes", it's clear
we are losing that battle. It's clear the rest of the world is taking a
larger and larger share of the world's resources for themselves, threatening
us and our lives. That's why gasoline is so expensive: other countries are
using it. That's why we have fewer jobs: we buy our goods from other
countries, brought to us on ships built and run by other countries. That's
why our money is growing worthless: we've given too much of it to other
countries to buy what we want and we have nothing to sell them that they
want. 

Sooner or later each morning, the other hummer gets a long drink, apparently
after his opponent is exhausted and can no longer drive him away. 

Is that what we are doing too? 

Ron D'Eau Claire