Those of us for whom animals provide emotional, physical and spiritual sustenance often heed the call to rescue.
This reality is not exclusive to domestic pets.
Last Tuesday, my wife, Susan, tended our small patch of patio greenery. She ducked indoors and turned to view her lithe shoots of baby maple through the living room window.
“Oh, no! No — !,” Susan shrieked.
“What?,” I said, bolting to her side.
“There!” She pointed to a small pool of green and grey quaking on our weathered deck. We’d heard no thud or ping, so couldn’t imagine that a hummingbird had crashed into the window. But there she was, rolled onto her back; one wing fixed to the slick, deck surface where Susan had watered, the other beating frantically against it. The hummer’s feathery neck flashed iridescent as she thrashed. We gasped.
Two days earlier, one of our neighbors had spotted a nest slung between the vertices of two chain links near the storage units of our condo complex. The mother bird from that nest didn’t share the markings of our friend who mistook glass for open air.
Susan dashed onto the patio, gently righted the nearly weightless wonder and returned to my side. Hummers pressed her eyes shut. Our hearts sank as she listed. On the brink of toppling, she caught herself as I often have while dozing at my desk. Her belly flattened, possibly to supply ballast. Despite her wildly beating heart, hummer’s profile was serene, meditative. She was reviving. Maybe.
Susan consulted a web link another friend has sent us in response to our neighbor’s discovery. The link offered a tutorial on how to treat hummingbird nests found on or near one’s home — and what to do for a distressed hummer.
The first recommendation was watchful waiting. Stunned birds often collect themselves in a few moments, shake off their daze and dart away. When moments stretched into minutes without change, we prepared for possible transport to a bird sanctuary.
We found a shoebox and bore small holes in the top for ventilation. Then we lined it with soft terrycloth and placed it next to our trembling friend. Susan cupped her hands gently beneath the bird and transferred her into the box. The hummer’s tiny toes tickled her fingers.
“Oh, it’s okay. You’re okay,” Susan cooed.
Seconds later, hummer rustled the soft cloth. As if waking from a dream, her eyes popped open. Her head snapped between two distant points on an arc, nearly completing the circumference of awareness. Summoning the most enviable powers of propulsion, she thrust her emerald breast forward, sprang vertically in flight and darted into a nearby elmwood.
“Yay!,” we squeaked in unison. “You go, hummers!”
Walking hand-in-hand later that afternoon, Susan and I relived hummer’s resurrection.
“We all find our way, don’t we,” Susan said.
Yes, we do. The strength and tenderness in those tiny hummer toes found a home in Susan’s heart. And the sudden flutter of hummer’s stilled wings flung me back to the countless times I’d run into walls and mistook my stunned self for dead. No, it was just life steering me toward my inevitable collisions. Thanks to my family, friends and four-leggeds, I was soon airborne again.
Be we wild or tame, skilled or novice, every one of us crashes — and needs help in repairing our wings.