The wings of the ruby-throated hummingbird carry in the summer breeze gracing my morning moment. I listen to the front door creak open. My husband, Frank, begins his daily ritual: hanging the feeders around the east and south-facing perimeter of our log home thirteen miles above the gilded City of Boulder, Colorado. The quiescence of dawn sets upon the valley as a blanketing of tenderness. His devotion to the increasing population of hummingbirds is becoming well known. Word spreads on the wing. He used to only hang out three feeders.

That was before.

When day surrenders to evening, he will walk them back inside, sparing black bears the temptation of an easy meal.

It’s five-thirty. A solitary female hummingbird hovers in his face. Soon, the remainder will buzz and trill alongside her. For the moment, she perches on a lone spot on a south-facing feeder. Forty-five vacant spots remain.

These minuscule yet miraculous creations of nature are here this morning because, in the words of my favorite Buddhist Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, we inter-are. The land provides daily sustenance in the shape of purple aster, Indian paintbrush, cinquefoil and wild roses. We supplement with Frank’s nectar. It helps them grow strong enough to facilitate reproduction, ensuring the continuation of their species. Climate change brings drought and decreased pollination, reducing natural food sources. During the Cold Springs Fire of 2016, dozens of hummingbirds appeared in our mountain valley as suddenly as the conflagration erupted a few miles away. For five days we witnessed the aerial frenzy of choppers hauling buckets of water as hummingbirds flew hungry bodies to our feeders.

As the flames dwindled to embers, the tiny avian flock diminished in size, leaving the usual crowd of fifty to return to more spacious porch feeding.

And in mid-September when they depart for Costa Rica, we store the feeders in our barn until the following April. How they sustain themselves for such distance is a secret known only to hummingbirds, shared on the first floral landing. I like to think God Herself pulls them across the water for a time, until they reach nectar again.

For the time the ruby-throated and few fearless rufous hummingbirds are here, they pollinate the columbine and the coneflowers, the wild roses and the pink geranium. They hover above the creek snatching mosquito protein above rippling waters. Later, they congregate together for more intimate purposes of creating more little hummingbirds. All summer long we are privileged to watch them hover, dive, buzz and drive each other to the ground with a Trojan warlike fierceness in close proximity to our home. Seconds later, they return to the sky, silhouetted in clear blue with an energetic presence intrinsic to a Rocky Mountain summer.

We know some of their prosperity depends on our supporting them. As part of our natural living world, we enjoy our inter-being with the hummingbirds. I like to think their happiness is fed by Frank’s homemade nectar. I know it’s also cleaner, for the bug parts are strained daily by the gold tea filter my husband co-opted for such purposes. It was a gift from my best friend for straining jasmine pearl tea.

I haven’t yet told her its new purpose.

In turn, our happiness is fed by watching hummingbird numbers grow and knowing we’re helping them survive. Once and again, a baby will stall mid-flight by way of our screen. On such occasion, it becomes an act of delicate rescue to extract and revive the young creature by placing its beak into a feeder, holding it until it replenishes itself. And then, it can fly on about its day.

We inter-are with the ruby-throated hummingbirds as they inter-are with the cinquefoil and harebell wildflowers, the mosquitoes and whole of nature. I think the world is a better place for having hummingbirds in it.

At least, mine is.