Sweet rescue yields rewards

Saturday wasn’t an unusual day for us.

We have two hummingbird feeders hanging in trees, 10 to 15 feet apart and enjoy watching at least four hummingbirds flying around, chasing each other to and from the feeders and the one flowering bush in the yard, as well as into and out of the trees that shade the yard and the feeders.

I was fixing lunch and answering a daughter’s question about something that happened 20 to 25 years ago, when my husband stuck his head in the door and asked me to come outside - he was holding one of the hummingbird feeders. I was on the phone and wrapped up that call, then finished getting the lunch to the point it could simmer without attention for about 20 minutes.

Out on the back porch I found him squatting down beside the bird feeder that was now sitting on the arm of a chair. In his hand was a dark shape he was trying to hold close to the “flower” of the hummingbird feeder. Now, my husband’s fingers are all larger than my

See Sweet Rescue on Page 8 thumb, the shape was a hummingbird! He had found it on the floor in his shop building which often has the doors open most evenings while he works on things out there.

I took the tiny bird and nestled it between two of my much smaller fingers and followed my husband’s example inserting the beak into the feeder. Because hummingbirds don’t usually just sit there with their beaks in the feeders constantly, I would pull it away and back in occasionally. We could see the tip of its tongue extended beyond the beak, and the beak open and close. Its eyes would open for a while and close. We could watch the iridescent green feathers on the back move with its breathing. But we didn’t know if we were benefitting it or just prolonging the inevitable.

My husband went in and stirred the food on the stove, so I was out there about 20 or minutes “taking care” of the bird. It had moved its head by itself from side to side some, and moved its feet, but it didn’t even attempt to move its wings at all. Lunch done, we made an accordion shape out of a folded paper towel and nestled the bird in a valley while we went in for our lunch.

After lunch, which probably didn’t take 30 minutes to consume, I washed my skillet and the ran the dishwater for the rest to soak. My husband checked the bird, it had turned 90 degrees on the paper towel on its own power. I dried my hands and went out to look, planning on trying to get the bird to try more nectar.

It had moved again, on its own. The bird had maneuvered to one side of the square ice cream bucket, its chin was against the side looking up and its wings were spread out on each side as if it tried to fly. I picked it up and laid my hand out flat, getting ready to sit down beside the feeder again, and it flew away! Across and out of our yard and over to the neighbors.

We didn’t know if our rescue had done any good. But Monday, during lunch, we saw four separate hummingbirds in the yard at the same time!