Hummingbird medicine

Yesterday, July 6, 2006, I saved a hummingbird. I don’t know if it lived after I helped it, but I do know it flew away afterward. I was in the backyard to put out some peanuts for the squirrels and scrub jays, and I saw our friend “The Cat” playing with something. She put it down and then played with it again. I looked more closely and just saw a small clump of feathers, thinking that’s all it was. That was until it squeaked! I went over and pushed the cat away and there was a very tiny bird, a hummingbird, still breathing very rapidly but stunned. I gently picked it up and it squeaked again and I put it into a small terra cotta colored plastic flower pot. The little bird clung to my finger and I had to gently push it off to get it into the pot. I set the pot down inside the garage and I finished feeding the birds and walked back, watching The Cat, who had turned back to find its prey gone. She looked very puzzled and kept picking up clumps of grass and dropping them, as if to say, that’s not it! Where did I put that thing?

I took the bird back into the house and found a small box that had holes in it. I lined it with paper towels and gently put the tiny bird inside. It was breathing very rapidly—normal for a hummingbird—and was pretty limp. I closed the box and put it in my room, thinking that I was probably giving the bird a quiet place to die. About a half hour or so later I suddenly heard fluttering coming from the box! I yelled to John that the bird was very much alive and recovered from its trauma. After checking carefully for The Cat, I took the box outside and opened it. The hummingbird was in the corner, its wings splayed, very alert but also quite frightened. I told the bird it was okay and it could fly away now. I tilted the box a bit, and it moved and then took off, shooting through the leaves of a tree and then kind of dropping a bit before grabbing onto some branches. That was the last I saw of it. I went back there later and no bird. When I looked back into the box, there was a single, very small feather inside, tinged with a hint of green. I didn’t think much about it at first, but a few minutes later it occurred to me that it was an offering. It had left that single feather for me. I went back and got the tiny feather and put it in a very special place. My memory of that shimmering, vulnerable little life in my hand.

I hope it is thriving and healthy and enjoying lots of sweet nectar. I believe it is.

The photo below is a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, which is what I think it was: