Charley Harper
5 x 7 in. blank notecard with envelope
Consider the plight of the female ruby-throated hummingbird. She is a Plain Jane, whereas every male is a showy cad. After sex, the male skips town without even waving a wing goodbye. However, the intrepid female, left on her own, is wired to be a homemaker. She alone builds a tiny nest from the bud scales of a dogwood tree and lichen bound with spider silk—a one-woman domestic designer doing it all while her wings flutter 80 times per second. No one to help her raise her young, either—she's a single parent who decorated her interior with soft thistle or dandelion down. Being Homemaker of the Year never even scored her any points with ornithologists. Why? They named the species entirely after the males!