(You must look down to the right to see our Ruby Throat. Capturing this image required phone and constant attention- and eight attempts. Photo Socotra).

There was controversy that started before the normal Production Meeting of the Writer’s Section of Socotra House LLC this morning. As you may have gathered, Management is under pressure in today’s curious inversion of what used to be normal society. Now, citizens who signed up to fight in the seventy-year struggle against an inimical force that sought to limit freedom are prohibited from complaining. In one mode it is funny. The imposition of unitary thought upon a society that used to value freedom is startling. That is one of the reasons that Refuge Farm exists, though not the only one, of course. Our Attorney recommends the term “bird watching.”

But you can see how the other stuff started, and the natural American reaction was laughter. It is far beyond that now, of course. Our Attorney read the first paragraph and sighed, directing us to removed the word that was used by the opponent in a great struggle to keep an algorithm from harvesting our thought, moving it to a buffer file somewhere, addresses harvested and then used for some other purpose. Amanda is trying her best, but she naturally suffers from a generational inability to understand exactly why the older citizens- we checked legal status- around the Ring act in some of the strange ways we do.

That is a longer discussion that will produce a compromise of sorts with the weekly Weather Report, which has been delayed until there is a full and complete review. Which is another overhead issue all its own.

Instead, we took up the equally pressing matter of the intrusive zooming sound, a snarling dispersal of micro-air in ominous high-speed arcs that signal menace.

(Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Photo by Sari Oneal, who is much better organized than we are).

Melissa is directly responsible. In an attempt to lighten some of the controversy about “pronouns” and an indeterminate number of “preferences” disguised as biological characteristics, she decided to harness the fascination of flight to accomplish a public good. She had seen us looking up. We have layers of creatures that occupy the skies above. We mentioned the possible Kestrel that swooped down on our morning meeting a few days ago. Powerful and unafraid. The more timid Vultures, always flying in pairs for self-defense, looping in their graceful patterns high above the trees. And the assortment of low-fliers in blue and black and red, zigging in their way searching for sustenance, the bearers of which buzz in their own seeming random patterns.

Accordingly, she invested in colorful glass vases which she could fill with sugar-sweetened well-water. There was a purpose to her methodology. She had identified the sound that made some of us flinch. It was not a hum of nature. It was a sharp aggressive sound of small fury amplified by speed.

In the Spring now passed, Splash would visibly flinch at the loud and pervasive penetration of what seemed to be an enormous insect potentially loaded with venom and bile. An insect with mass in its vibrant motion, something so large that it would require a swatter of industrial proportions. It was intimidating. And it was something he had never seen before. That took Melissa to research and explain. “They are Hummingbirds. The five or six of them that now inhabit the deck around the Bunk House are known as Ruby Throats, due to the coloration of the upper thorax. Although they have a range across almost all of North America in high summer, it is the length of daylight that determines where they wish to temporarily reside. Accordingly, the passing of the Solstice this week represents the climatic optimum for our buzzing snarling little friends, who are here to dine and mate. To some degree, we share their passion.

As the still-warming days begin to darken, they will turn their attention to migration. By the next solstice, they will have arrived in Mexico or further south. Weighing less than three grams in body mass, these astonishing quick-flying avians fly south to Mexico and beyond for the winter break before returning to dive-bomb Splash and delight the rest of the Ring. Their aeronautical accomplishments are astonishing- Melissa claims some of them can cross the vast Gulf of Mexico in less than a day.

We thereby celebrate the Summer Solstice as the highpoint of the Ruby Rest. As the daylight hours shorten, a few minutes per day, our Rubies will leave the farm and migrate south. Like the lightning-swift passes at the feeders, one evening a few weeks hence, they will leave our ground and move south in search of flowers, insects and other nourishment. So, today we celebrate their take on the magic of the moment. Splash was huddled on his rock, attempting to avoid the buzz. But the rest of us noted at least five of our Ruby-buddies humming in mating swirls of magnificent motion. We hope the sugar water water will keep them around for a bit, but we have no desire to alter their rhythm. We will enjoy their presence while they grant it, wish them a pleasant and active flight, and hope they will bring their buzzing bounty once more to Refuge Farm.

They are something as extraordinary as the languid lazy life we share under this rich, full Piedmont summer breeze.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
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