Tony and the Five Feeders

Original Artwork & Story by Lovejoy

Every morning, just as the first warm light began to spill across the rooftops, Tony left his favorite lookout branch and started his patrol. He was a small hummingbird with iridescent green feathers that flashed blue and turquoise when the sunlight caught them, and although he weighed almost nothing, Tony carried himself like the unquestioned guardian of the entire neighborhood. He had five feeders under his protection, spread across several yards, and over time he had memorized every detail of the route between them. He knew which fences provided the fastest shortcuts, which branches offered the clearest view of approaching rivals, and which patches of shade were useful when the afternoon heat became heavy. He could travel the entire circuit in only a few minutes when he wanted to, but a proper patrol was never as simple as flying from one feeder to the next. Tony had to inspect, drink, listen, watch, and sometimes chase, because in his mind the five feeders were not merely places to eat. They were his responsibility.

The first feeder hung beneath a quiet porch where the air stayed cool long after sunrise, while the second was suspended near a kitchen window and was usually filled generously with fresh nectar. The third feeder was Tony’s least favorite to defend because it stood beside a thick rosemary bush where younger hummingbirds had discovered they could hide among the branches and wait for him to leave. The fourth hung beneath a crooked mesquite tree, and the fifth waited inside a garden so full of flowers that Tony could see flashes of red, pink, purple, and white before he even reached the fence. His mornings usually began smoothly enough, but by the time he reached the third feeder, trouble had often started somewhere behind him. The other hummingbirds had learned his routine almost as well as he had, and Tony suspected they watched him from hidden branches, waiting for the shimmer of his feathers to disappear into the distance before swooping down for a quick drink. Sometimes Tony would spot one at the third feeder and race after it, only to realize halfway through the chase that someone else was probably taking advantage of his absence at the first. He would wheel around in midair, dart back across the yard, and arrive just in time to see another tiny visitor disappearing over the fence. Maintaining five feeders, Tony was discovering, required an exhausting amount of vigilance.

Still, the other hummingbirds were not his greatest irritation. Tony understood hunger, even when he disliked sharing, and he could at least chase a rival away. His true enemies were the ants. They came without warning and without any respect for territory, marching patiently down feeder hooks in long determined lines until they reached the sweet nectar below. One ant became ten, ten became dozens, and before long an entire feeder could be ruined. Tony hated arriving after a long patrol, ready for a cool drink, only to discover little dark bodies floating in the sugar water. He would hover in front of the feeder with an expression of pure disbelief, inspecting it from one side and then the other as though he might find some hidden portion the ants had not invaded. There was nothing he could do except wait for the humans to notice the problem, wash everything, and bring out a fresh batch. Hummingbirds respected a dramatic aerial charge. Ants did not. Tony had buzzed them, hovered over them, and glared at them with all the authority his tiny body could produce, but the ants simply continued marching, completely unimpressed.

Perhaps that was why Tony had begun spending more and more time at the fifth feeder, the one in the flower garden. At first it had been only another stop along his route, but gradually he noticed that he did not leave it as quickly as the others. The garden offered more than a plastic feeder filled with sugar water. Scarlet salvia rose in bright clusters beneath the sun, pink blossoms curved open like tiny invitations, purple flowers tucked themselves beneath silvery leaves, and long trumpet-shaped blooms seemed perfectly made for Tony’s narrow beak. He could drink from the feeder if he wanted, but he did not have to depend on it. He could move from flower to flower, tasting something different each time, and when he wanted a change from nectar, there were tiny insects drifting through the air that made a satisfying little meal. Even the resting places were better. Thin branches reached out beneath leafy shade, giving Tony several comfortable places to perch while the garden moved quietly around him. Bees wandered lazily between blossoms, leaves whispered whenever a breeze passed through them, and sunlight shifted slowly across the ground as the hours changed.

Tony found himself lingering there long after he should have continued his patrol. He would perch on one of his favorite branches and fluff his feathers, telling himself he was simply observing the territory, but sometimes several peaceful minutes passed before he remembered that there were four other feeders waiting for inspection. In the garden, Tony did not feel the same urgency he felt everywhere else. There was enough food that one visiting hummingbird did not seem quite as threatening, and there were so many flowers that no single bird could possibly claim all of them. More than once, Tony heard the familiar whir of another hummingbird passing nearby and remained on his branch instead of immediately launching himself into battle. At first this surprised him. Tony had spent so much of his life reacting to every flash of wings that sitting still while another hummingbird crossed the edge of the yard felt almost irresponsible. Yet the longer he stayed among the flowers, the more he began to wonder whether guarding everything was actually the same thing as being secure.

Five feeders had once made Tony feel rich. If one became empty, there were four more. If ants invaded another, he still had choices. If a storm damaged one or a human forgot to refill it, Tony knew exactly where to go next. His large territory gave him options, and those options had always felt like safety. Lately, however, Tony was beginning to recognize the cost of maintaining them. Five feeders meant five places to inspect every day, five locations where rivals might appear, five reasons to remain alert, and five opportunities for ants to destroy an otherwise perfectly good meal. The abundance he had worked so hard to protect had slowly become a schedule he could never escape. Even when Tony was drinking at one feeder, some part of his attention was already focused on the next, wondering who might be there and whether he was falling behind.

One afternoon, while resting beneath the leaves in the flower garden, Tony looked down at the blossoms and allowed himself to imagine something he had never seriously considered before. What if he retired here? He could keep one feeder instead of five and let the rest of the neighborhood sort itself out. This yard already provided nearly everything he needed. There was fresh nectar in the feeder, natural nectar in dozens of flowers, insects to catch, shade during the warmest part of the day, and enough variety that Tony could spend hours exploring without crossing a single fence. Instead of racing constantly through the neighborhood, he could learn which blossoms opened first in the morning and which ones remained sweet late in the afternoon. He could rest when he was tired without feeling that he had abandoned his duties somewhere else. The idea felt unexpectedly peaceful, and for several moments Tony pictured an entirely different kind of life.

Then uncertainty crept in. Gardens changed. Flowers stopped blooming. Seasons became dry, feeders disappeared, and humans sometimes rearranged things for reasons no hummingbird could understand. What if Tony gave up four reliable feeding places and then discovered that his beautiful garden did not remain beautiful forever? What if next year the flowers were fewer, or the feeder was moved, or another hummingbird claimed the yard before Tony could stop him? His five feeders suddenly seemed reassuring again, not because he enjoyed defending them, but because they represented backup plans. Tony realized that he was caught between two different kinds of security. One came from having many possibilities scattered across the neighborhood, while the other came from trusting that one good place might be enough.

As Tony sat with that thought, a flash of green appeared near the far end of the garden. Another hummingbird slipped between the flowers and hovered briefly beside a red blossom. Instinct surged through Tony before he had time to think. He sprang from his branch and raced toward the intruder, wings beating furiously as he chased the newcomer toward the fence. The other hummingbird darted away, and Tony followed for several yards before something unfamiliar happened. He stopped. Suspended in the warm air, Tony watched the other bird continue into the distance, but instead of following, he turned and looked back toward the garden. The flowers were still there. The feeder was still full. Nothing had been taken from him simply because another hummingbird had enjoyed a brief drink.

Tony returned to his branch more slowly than usual and settled beneath the leaves. He was not ready to surrender the other four feeders completely, and perhaps he did not need to make such a dramatic decision all at once. He could still visit them. He could still drink from them when he passed through the neighborhood, and he could still chase an especially rude intruder now and then if the mood struck him. What he no longer seemed certain about was whether every feeder had to be defended every moment of every day. There would always be another hungry hummingbird, another opportunistic visitor waiting for him to leave, and certainly another determined column of ants. Tony could spend his entire life trying to control all of them and never truly finish the job.

As the afternoon softened around him, Tony tucked one tiny foot beneath his feathers and watched the garden glow in the lowering sunlight. Bees moved quietly through the flowers, a breeze stirred the leaves above his head, and for once he did not feel that he needed to be somewhere else. Tomorrow morning he would probably fly his familiar route again, because old habits are difficult to abandon and Tony still liked knowing what was happening throughout his neighborhood. Yet he suspected his patrol might become a little less urgent. He might pass the first feeder without circling it twice, allow a stranger a few sips at the third, and resist the temptation to chase every flash of wings across the fourth. Most of all, he knew he would return to the flower garden earlier and stay there longer.

Tony had not officially retired from his five-feeder empire, but he had begun to understand something he had never considered while racing from yard to yard. A smaller territory did not necessarily mean a smaller life. Perhaps having enough was not about protecting every possible source of sweetness. Perhaps it was about finding one good place, allowing yourself to rest there, and having enough time left in the day to actually taste the flowers.