by Burt Glover

The happy reports have been arriving daily across our area — the hummingbirds are here! It seems as though everybody is head-over-heels in love with them, and I am no exception. Who doesn’t become hypnotized, watching those little jewels zipping around the yard?

I long-thought that ruby-throated hummingbirds were the only species found in South Carolina, but have been astounded to learn there are at least ten species of hummingbirds that have been spotted in our state at one time or another. Ten!! Admittedly, most are rare sightings, and most have occurred during the wintertime. One -– the calliope hummingbird, the smallest bird native to the US — looks much like the ruby-throat. You may one day see a calliope at your feeder and not even know it. Keep your eyes peeled!

Here, I will concentrate only on the ruby-throat. Many years ago, when I lived near Rocky Springs, (off the road to New Holland), I put out a hummingbird feeder. Perhaps it was my proximity to the South Edisto, but my feeder was immediately thronged with hummingbirds. So I put out two feeders, then three. It wasn’t long before my entire yard was a hummer feeding frenzy. I tried to count them once, but with so many, zipping around and wildly chasing each other, it was impossible. I was lucky that I didn’t get my eye put out!

In those days, I didn’t realize the importance of cleanliness. These days I do, so I don’t put feeders. It takes so much attentiveness: cleaning, sanitizing, and putting out fresh nectar every couple of days — or daily in spells of hot temperatures — to prevent fungal and bacterial growth that would swell their tongues and suffocate them. It’s most important, if you choose to feed hummingbirds, to research the proper protocol and commit to following it without fail.

Nowadays, instead of putting out feeders, I plant the flowers they love and enjoy watching the hummingbirds at the flowers. It may equate to fewer hummers, but it sure is a lot less work, plus there are no battles with the bees, wasps and ants taking over the feeders.

In my younger years, I would sometimes, on those first, most beautiful days of spring, call into work and *cough, cough* report that I could not possibly come in. I remember one of those days, I took a lunch to Hitchcock Woods, eventually stopping at one of my favorite spots — a flat area on the top of a tall cliff along Sand River, where I could soak in the sights and scents of a beautiful spring morning. After a while, I ate my lunch, and fell into a peaceful sleep.

At some point, I was awakened by a strange sound. I opened one eye. Not more than three feet above me was a female ruby-throat… and above her was a male doing his courtship display. I plainly got the view that she was seeing — the male, zipping above in continual U-shaped arcs at 45 miles per hour, at least, chittering and making clicking sounds all the while. I’ve read that these arcs can reach upwards of 50 feet into the air. I’m not sure if she was impressed by this display, but I certainly was. 

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Hummingbirds do not depend on us humans for food. Though 90% of their intake consists of nectar, they can obtain this substance from flowers, damaged fruit, or from tree sap derived from the holes made by sapsuckers.

Insects are an essential component of their diet, and they spend much time plucking spiders — along with hapless snared bugs from their webs; snapping up mosquitoes, fruit flies, gnats and other bugs out of the air; searching plants and tree bark for aphids, beetles, ants and other small insects. In the wild, they will certainly not starve, but our feeders can provide them with an important source of food in an increasingly uncertain world. 

It sounds idyllic, but life can be tough for a hummingbird. There are so many other creatures that would dine upon them. Unfortunately, our domestic cats, left outside to roam freely, might be their main hazard. Others include the giant, imported Chinese praying mantises, largemouth bass, bullfrogs, snakes, and even large dragonflies will nab them. Hawks, crows, blue jays, grackles, herons, shrikes and gulls also take a toll.

Hummingbirds can also get caught in the sticky webs of larger spider species, either in flight or while collecting the web to build their nest. While the spiders do not prey on them, hummingbirds can become hopelessly snared.

Climate change threatens the timing of the flowers they need to sustain them during and upon arrival from their migratory trips from Mexico and Central America to our backyards. Habitat destruction is also disappearing many of the native flowers they depend on for survival.

The good news is that, despite these hazards, their numbers in the eastern US are said to be increasing, which is yet another reason to be happy with their arrival each spring. Ruby-throated hummingbirds may be tiny and delicate in stature, but they are also tough little birds who won’t hesitate to chase giant hawks many times their size from their territory. Our efforts to help them by providing flowers and feeders are well-spent.

Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond.

Most everyone who’s ever lived in Aiken has at least some memory or impression of Sand River, whether as a place at the heart  of a massive drainage project, the site of catastrophic erosion, or — as is the case for most people —  an intriguing feature of Hitchcock Woods and a destination for playing and exploring.

My memories and impressions would fill a book, which I’ll distill to a very few: trekking down to the river with my brother 50-something years ago and wading the wild torrents, (which would pale in comparison the ferocity and danger of later century currents); journeys upriver between rains to treasure-hunt for sherds of old pottery, fragments of aqua and amethyst-colored glass bottles, pieces of exquisitely-patterned china, odd metal relics and, on rare occasion, an unbroken antique bottle or an arrowhead washed down from the banks.

There were also those golden October afternoons when Mrs. Brown, a Winter Colony resident, arrived from Maine and took a party of neighborhood children down to the woods for a picnic on a hillside overlooking Sand River. She read stories to us; we swung on the vines, played in the sand, and, when our appetites could no longer be contained, we ate our sandwiches.

For much of my life from childhood onward, my bottom dresser drawer was filled with treasures from Sand River. The monetary value was zero. I just liked knowing they were there. Sand River — an ephemeral river that rises and falls with the rain — is one of Aiken’s original enchantments, albeit so changed by the elements of time as to be unrecognizable for most of it’s length. 

So it was with special interest that I read a memory of Sand River from 1875 in a a two-part article titled, “Spring Days in Aiken,” written by a man who’d brought his wife to piney-aired landscape of Aiken for its famed restorative properties. The topic of the river rose during a general description of the landscape to the west of town:

A little way off begins a strange valley, with wooded sides, running to the west, and along his bottom trails the river of sand. This river resembles almost any other, except in the fact that there’s not a drop of water in it. The rains have brought down from the hillsides thousands of currents of fine clean earth, of a yellow shade and have caused them to eddy about the trees and roots that have stood in the way, and to spread and disperse themselves and all the inequalities of the ground. Yet the torrents of water which have caused this have been instantly absorbed in the bed of their own making, leaving all the marks of their presence, indeed their facsimiles upon the sand above.

I believe that it is hereabout that the town urchins, and industrious visitors as well, come to gather the colored earth for mementos of the place. It  is not unusual to find before your hotel door on a March morning a group of children…  holding in their hands bunches of roses in full bloom, and tubes of glass filled with fifty specimens of tinted sands. The colors range from green to russet-red and chrome-yellow, and include chocolate and violet. Every stranger buys, and it is a thriving trade. 

It’s true. There is something about the place that compels one to bring something home. A shoeful of sand, a porcelain relic, a happy memory.

By Burt Glover

As part of our natural world, stars are often overlooked. In my younger years I fell under the impression that telescopes were needed to properly study them. My older brother had received a reflector telescope for Christmas one year. Closeups of the moon were, of course, astounding. The planets, a little less so. The excitement of looking at the individual blurry spots, known as stars quickly faded.

Back then, I saw the nighttime sky as just an unchanging jumble of bright spots with no meaning, and I didn’t think much more about it. 

In my 30’s, my sister gave me a book– “The Stars: A New Way To See Them” by H. A. Rey, and it changed my life.

Starting in the early spring, with the scent of flowers in the nighttime air, I started my journey, sans a telescope.  I was quickly able to pick out the constellation Orion, the hunter.

This giant hunter, with his sword held high, and knife hanging from his belt, appeared to be in eternal battle with Taurus the bull, with its long horns charging. Of course, Orion has his hunting dog, Canis Major (the big dog), at his heels to help him.

So many stories from this small piece of sky! Betelgeuse, a bright star in Orion’s shoulder may, sometime soon, become a supernova which will light up our nighttime sky. Betelgeuse= Beetlejuice. Don’t say it three times fast, though! 

The Orion nebula, one of the few visible to the naked eye, can be seen in the knife hanging from his belt. His hunting dog assistant contains the Dog Star, Sirius in its collar. It was thought by our ancestors that when this star revolved behind our sun in July and August, it contributed to the sun’s heating power, giving us the “dog days” of summer. 

The Pleiades (translated to the Seven Sisters) is a very small star cluster of stars that occurs in the back of the Taurus the bull, which Orion appears to be battling. The Pleiades has been mistaken by many to be the Little Dipper, due to its shape, but it is not. The Japanese name of this star cluster is “Subaru,” and you may see an emblem of this star cluster on many of the cars that they make today. So many stories!

As the seasons passed, my knowledge progressed. I learned more and more of the constellations, and so many more of their stories.

The zodiac consists of the twelve constellations that the sun, moon and planets appear to travel through in the course of a year. I was surprised to learn that there is actually a thirteenth constellation of the zodiac! With thirteen being such an unlucky number, our ancestors opted to look the other way. It didn’t help that the constellation (Ophiuchus)  depicted to them a voodoo doctor holding a snake that has been torn in two. I have never been one to put much stock in astrology, but I have always been curious. At the time I was born, the moon was in that thirteenth constellation. I’ve always wondered how astrologers would interpret such a thing.

Our ancestors charted their lives by the stars. As the constellations in the sky progressed throughout the year, they served as navigational guides, cues to plant and harvest, stories to pass along to younger generations. The stars that I see tonight will slowly circle around, and reliably be here to see next year at this time. The stars gave the ancients, and can give us, a sense of continuity — a connection with the cycle of life. The same is true of many animals, whose migration, feeding, and mating rituals are guided by the stars. 

These years, I don’t need to see a calendar to know that, when I see Orion rising in the early morning summer sky, winter is on its way. Seeing Virgo and Leo on the horizon in the cold of winter gives me hope that spring is near. Once you realize there is more to the night sky than a jumble of stars, you realize how much more there is to see. 

Meteor showers arrive many times throughout the year, the best known being perhaps the Perseid in August and the Leonid in November. There are also comets, lunar eclipses and planetary occurances to dazzle. Weather phenomena are there to astound. I’ll never forget seeing my first “Moon Dogs” — rainbows surrounding the moon from ice crystals in the atmosphere.

Stars are an essential part of our natural world. And you don’t need a telescope to see them! As our ancestors and so many birds and animals could attest, the nighttime sky brings the circle of life together.

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Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond.