Article by Lynda La Rocca
Wildlife – June 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
MY HUSBAND STEVE AND I were in the supermarket produce section when we noticed two teenage boys staring at a hummingbird flitting frantically around the ceiling light fixtures. As we watched, the bird fluttered to the greeting-card aisle and flattened itself, wings outspread, against a bright pink “birthday cards” placard.
The boys approached, but I was faster. Carefully disengaging the hummingbird, I gently cupped it in my hands. It was a male broad-tailed, the most common hummingbird in Colorado’s high country. The boys came closer; one even stretched out a finger and ventured an oh-so-delicate touch of the hummer’s iridescent green head.
The hummingbird was exhausted and stressed, his eyes half-closed and his wings drooping. Our priority was to get him out of the store. Abandoning the boys and our quest for groceries, we hurried to the exit.
I was obviously carrying something in my hands; at any moment, I expected to be stopped for shoplifting. But Steve and I made it to the parking lot. Now what? We couldn’t just leave the hummer, so we got in the car and Steve drove across the street to a vacant lot filled with wildflowers. Steve poured some of the potable water we always carry into a bottle cap and held it near the hummers bill. The bird drank and soon seemed alert enough to release.
I opened my hands. We watched as the hummer flew several feet — then crashed into a telephone pole and fell. Steve and I dashed over and found the hummingbird at the pole’s base, eyes half-closed again.
As I carried the hummer back to the car, Steve and I debated what to do. At a loss, we returned to the supermarket. The hummer and I waited quietly while Steve went inside to get a small box to hold the bird.
It was a Sunday afternoon late last August, and we weren’t far from a wooded, flower-filled cemetery. Steve drove there next. At the cemetery, we gave the hummer more water and let him go. The hummingbird flew — right into Steve’s leg, where he remained clinging to Steve’s khaki shorts.
Gently disengaging him once more, we set the hummer on the ground and waited. He rose a few inches and became entangled in a shrub. We broke off surrounding branches to give him room to maneuver. But because he still seemed so weak and disoriented, we decided at last to take him to our house where he could recover in safety and solitude.
Steve carefully removed the branch with the hummer still on it. While Steve drove, I held the open-topped box on my lap, keeping a hand raised above the hummer to prevent flight.
A little more than halfway home, the hummer began flicking out his thread-like tongue and turning his head ever-so-slightly. At our house, Steve unlocked the door to the enclosed front porch and I hurried inside, bearing box, branch, and hummingbird.
Steve then retrieved one of our filled hummingbird feeders and placed it on a mat on the porch floor. I put the hummer on a white feeder perch, which he immediately began probing for sugar solution. (Steve makes ours and adds a touch of molasses, which the hummers seem to love.) The hummer also probed the feeder’s green base. Oddly enough, though, he didn’t even attempt to drink from the red, flower-shaped feeder opening.
Steve grabbed a teaspoon, slowly tipped the feeder (with the hummingbird still clinging to the opposite perch) and filled the spoon with the sugar solution. He offered it to the hummer, who drank deeply.
We closed the porch door but periodically checked on the hummer, who couldn’t see us from his vantage point. For nearly two hours, he remained on the feeder perch, his bill pointing almost straight up. Despite the strange posture, he appeared to be sleeping. When I looked again during the third hour, he was still on the perch, but his head was turning rhythmically from side to side in typical hummingbird fashion. Periodically, he’d stop to drink greedily from the feeder.
As dusk approached, more than a dozen hummers (primarily broad-tailed and rufous) began swarming our outdoor feeders for their evening feeding frenzy.
Steve checked the porch again, but our hummer had vanished. When we found him in a climbing vine snaking along one wall, we knew it was time to return him to his own world. Steve opened the door. After buzzing a window in strong flight, the hummer zipped outside. We watched him soar to the top of a pine tree, where he perched briefly. Then he flew to another tree and out of sight.
Lynda La Rocca watches wildlife from Twin Lakes.