I did not take this beautiful photo. I have not yet been able to get a great hummingbird photo – but not for lack of trying. This one came from a website with free screensavers. (http://www.freedesktopwallpapers.net)
I thought my next post would be about the rest of my trip to the Zoo, but while sitting with my laptop on the garden swing this morning, I had such an amazing adventure, I got totally sidetracked.
The Hummingbirds have just arrived and that always feels like the real beginning of the paradise days of summer – that and when I first set up the fountain (haven’t done that yet). But this morning, a Hummingbird got herself in a terrible predicament.
Our front doorway is covered by a portale (covered porch) that has a skylight in it. The Hummingbird accidentally got up into the skylight well and her world no longer made sense to her – she couldn’t fly into that sky she could see so clearly.
I tried luring her down with a variety of plants from the Hummingbird gourmet menu, to no avail. Then I got out a ladder and put the plants up in the well with her. I set them on the beams – thinking she would be distracted from that fake sky and re-orient herself. No luck.
This went on for twenty minutes or so, with both of us building up a good head of stress.
As a person who would never want to fall off a ladder and break something (I do that pretty well just walking around on the ground), I reluctantly got out our rickety ladder and the garden gloves, and got myself as far into the skylight well as possible, looping one arm around a viga (beam) for support. My idea was to either guide her out of the well with my hand, or try to gently get hold of her and bring her down. The poor little thing tried to hide in a corner. She was terrified.
Then, all of a sudden, she seemed to calm down – as if she had made a decision. She jumped onto my leather-gloved finger and hung on for dear life. Hummingbirds are so tiny when holding still! I LOVED that she was trusting me. Now, I *really* couldn’t fall.
Luckily, I was able to keep my cool – and my other arm around the viga, and my feet on the ladder while I slowly transported her back to safety. She was so still, I wondered of she was injured, but as soon as she was back “on earth”, she knew just what to do, and she flew away.
I stood there feeling gifted by our adventure – and then remembered that for twenty-some years, I have been trying to get a good photo of a Hummingbird – to get close enough – and there we had been, beak to nose for half an hour, and I had not once thought about the camera.
Perhaps, out of gratitude, she will come back and pose for me one of these days.
