how I feel about the interference,although I do see why some are so desperate to try to help.
Intimate episode with hummingbird a special gift
My husband, Jim, came into the house very excited about something."You won't believe what just happened!" he said. I immediately assured him I could not possibly, after two days spent stripping and re-roofing our attached two-car garage, have the brain capacity to hazard a guess.
"I just rescued a hummingbird!"
Out on a wood pallet in front of the garage was a tiny creature with shiny green feathers, trying to become invisible. He blinked but made no move to leave us.
Jim thought the hummingbird was attracted to several boxes of flowers stashed in the garage. While trying to exit the building toward the first light he saw, the small bird had become trapped between a windowpane and a piece of Plexiglas.
Jim, indeed, had rescued the ruby-throated hummingbird, but now the normally feisty and territorial male of the species seemed paralyzed. After reassuring myself that the bird didn't seem injured when Jim plucked him from a sure death, I dug in my rag pile for a remnant of a soft terry towel.
The bird watched me approach, only moving his little black eyes. Picking him up ever so gently, I placed him on the towel and formed it into an unnatural blue nest, thinking he was losing body heat and could be immobilized by it. Jim worried the bird would get his minuscule feet caught in the towel's terry loops, but the bird briefly stretched his wings out as if he would fly away, then comfortably settled into his prior pose.
It was amazing to feel so much heat from that little body!
We wondered if he had been stuck in the window for a while and lacked the physical energy to fly away. How could we feed him?
Grabbing one of the small hummingbird feeders that adorn a nearby flower bed, I carefully guided the bird's beak into the life-sustaining sugar and water "nectar." Jim thought he may have drunk some. I was less sure.
All the while we talked to the bird in soft, soothing tones, making no jerking movements, and trying not to give him cardiac arrest, although we knew he was frightened.
We stood back and watched him for a minute while we thought of what to do next. Noticing that the pallet on which he rested was shaded by a towing trailer, we looked for a warmer location to bring the bird.
Perhaps the paving blocks next to Jim's workshop, warmed by the rays of the late-day sun, would provide a more conducive environment for the animal's return to its own world. I picked him up in the shelter of the soft blue towel and carried him to the blocks. He rested for a few seconds, then, spotting a clear path to freedom, spread his tiny wings and headed for the safety of the woods behind the house.
The hummingbird's brief convalescence at our home was a special gift given and happily accepted. We hoped we would see him again, sitting on the branches above one of our hummingbird feeders, a tiny monarch with a huge presence.
Thought I'd share and see what others would've done.
~~~ruth~~~
