A Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness

Our hummingbird is sick.  I call him Hum-Hum. 

Mat hung up a hummingbird feeder outside our bedroom window when my back was hurt.  I used to lie flat on the bed for hours a day, reading the newspaper, doing the crossword, reading books, talking on the phone, I know it sounds like a lot of people's idea of a perfect day off, but the day off lasted for almost a year and a half.  I didn't sit down for 10 months.  But that was then.  Now I am riding my bike, swimming, learning to rock climb, hiking, and I have even gone ice climbing and snow skiing.  I am back in the game. 

The whole time I was laid up, I watched my hummingbird feeder.  The tiny birds started coming right away, and they were so close to me that I would laugh hysterically.  They are so full of spunky personality.  Their tiny feet!  With their tiny claws!  The feet wrap around the little perch on the feeder, and they look around really fast, their heads moving so quickly.  When they fly, you can't even see their wings, and when the window is open you can hear the vruuuum vibrating sound that they make.  One particular bird made the feeder his.  This bird i call Hum-Hum.  I know him from the few others that sneak around when he is out making hummingbird love or fighting.  He is spunky, full of himself.  The feeder, which I imagine in his tiny hummingbird brain, is a giant hovering flower always full of delicious delicious nectar, is his.  He chases the others away with extra loud vruuuuming and fantastic aerial gestures of dominance and pecking with his tiny beak.  He allows me to stand right next to him, window all the way open, and he will continue to eat out of his flower.  I can see his tiny white hummingbird tongue flick in and out of his pointy hummingbird beak. 

I have watched Hum-Hum for almost two years now. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed that he was just sitting on his perch a lot.  Just sitting there, not eating.  He has always chilled on his flower for lengths of time, but never for this long.  He has been just sitting, resting.  I have never known him to rest.  A few days ago, I saw him looking terrible.  His feathers are all puffed out around his body, kind of in a disheveled way, and he is leaning forward and breathing heavily.  He looks around in a panic to see if any other hummingbirds are going to attack him as he eats from his flower, the flower that he once so mightily defended.  There is a new tiny, younger hummingbird coming around. 

He is either sick or in decline.  Mat called Wild Care to see what we should do, and they suggested capturing him and bringing him in to them.  They can try to cure him if it is a disease.  I have given this a lot of thought.  He is my buddy. 

But he is wild and free and always has been.  And because he is my buddy, I do not want to capture him.  A hummingbird's life span is pretty short, and if this is just the end of his life, I do not want to trap him and have him poked and prodded and spending his last days, scared, and in a cage.  A caged bird.  A caged hummingbird, I can't imagine a sadder thing. 

He helped me through a bad spot in my life, and now I will help him by just making sure that his flower has food in it.  I didn't see him today.  That is a first.  I usually see him every day.  I am running scenarios in my mind.  The best one that Mat thought of was that perhaps Hum-Hum is a lady, and she is carrying eggs in her body.  I hope that that is true.  Maybe it is.  Or maybe he is better, and the spunky, spirited hummingbird I have been seeing today is really him.  Maybe he just had a cold like I do right now.  I hope so.  Or maybe Hum-Hum will become the dinner of a beautiful hawk, a tragic end to my friend, but at least he would die playing his part in the give and take of life in the natural world.  It is a cruel place.  As a naturalist, though, I believe that it is only my place to observe it and let it play out the way that it is meant to. 

Hum-Hum.  He is my little buddy till the end.