A few thoughts about life in general

Once upon a time, a few years ago on a peaceful Sunday afternoon I was sitting in the living room reading a newspaper. (My natural habitat) I heard a thump at the window in front of the house. It sounded like a bird hit it, but the thump was way too small. Curious, I got up and went outside. Sitting on our front deck on its tail feathers, with its feet stretched out in front of him, and his beak stuck straight up into the air, was a Hummingbird. I picked the little guy up; he was too stunned to care. I brought it inside and showed it to my wife, Janis.

Of course she whipped right into “Mother mode”. She mixed up some sugar water. She gently held it in one hand while she drizzled sugar water down alongside its beak. I thought; “Well that should finish it off”. It acted like it was choking, but actually it was drinking the sugar water quite hungrily. After a few minutes it started looking around, and it became very alert. Janis took the bird back outside and sat with in for awhile, then she gave it some more sugar water and she opened her hand. The little bird sat there for a while then looked at her as if to say “Thanks” then it took to wing and very proficiently flew off to the South-West. And that was the very last we saw it.




The other day a friend of mine had a similar, but much more serious, experience with a Hummingbird. Some of the neighborhood kids tearfully brought her a baby Hummingbird that they said they found it in the middle of the road, and they wanted her to save it. They didn’t remember where they found it, so she couldn’t take it back. The little hummer had short little wing and tail feathers but most of the rest of her had pinfeathers. As luck would have it the lady had a Hummingbird nest it her art collection, so she put the nest and the hummer in a bowl with a plastic lid with a screen taped over the top. She made it some sugar water and started feeding it every half-hour with an eye-dropper. The bird soon revived and accepted the nice lady as her new mom.

My wife loaned her a large Parrot cage which the lady lined the outside of with gauze to keep the bird from escaping. She put a few branches and a couple of flower pots with blooming flowers in it. She put the nest with a hummingbird feeder in there also. It looked like a complete Hummingbird aviary.

She continued to feed it every half hour, by then she had added some other bird nutrients to the water. The little bird learned to squeak when it was hungry. In short order it had learned to hover, and feed itself out of the Hummingbird feeder, which must have been a huge relief to the poor tired lady.

She eventually placed the cage outside with the door open and made a feeder accessible on the outside of the cage. The bird is now living around her yard and eating out of the feeder. The lady fondly named the bird "Bitsy", probably because of it's size.

When the lady goes outside and holds up the eyedropper full of sugar water the little hummer flies right up and eats out of it. That must be an immensely rewarding feeling for the nice lady.

Now for a few thoughts: The reason that I have to keep this lady’s identity a secret is that it is very much against the law to harbor a wild bird. However, its perfectly okay to shoot a deer and have it's heart for dinner. I think that it has something to do with the fact that you pay the state for a licence to do that. I'm sure that if enough people were willing to pay for a permit to raise Hummingbirds it would be legal also.

Some other things that you should know: The mother Hummingbird feeds the baby partially digested bugs from her stomach to the babies stomach by sticking her beak down the babies throat, and into its stomach. If you can’t do that you shouldn’t try to raise a baby hummer. The lady was lucky that the baby was mostly grown, or it would have probably died.

Some other things that I looked up: the Hummingbird heart rate can beat as often as 1020 times a minute. It’s wings flap at 4800 times per minute. Here is a video of a hummingbird in slo-mo. A Hummingbird eats five times an hour, and it eats more than it’s weight in a day.

Hummingbirds go into a deep sleep at night called a “torper”. A torpid Hummingbirds heart rate can be as slow as fifty beats per minute, and their body cools off considerably. They wake up and come out of their torper by vibrating and moving around, about twenty minutes before they fly off to eat.

Do people care?...People do!