Hummingbird Whispering

Essay by Miko Ruhlen

Sometimes we seek inspiration; other times it hits us on the nose and falls in our lap. That is what happened to my family a few summers ago in our Hood River, Oregon backyard.

My son was lounging in the yard, swaying on the porch swing when something small dropped onto his nose, then onto his lap. He stopped swinging and called me over and we squinted in the sun to see what had fallen. I saw that it was a male Anna’s Hummingbird. He collided with the grape arbor above the swing.

The bird lay motionless, but breathing, I picked up this tiny shiny bird and cupped it in my hands with one hand on top to give it some darkness and protection from the wind. After letting the bird recover for a few minutes, we hand fed him sugar water. After a while longer, he perked up and was able to perch on and drink from a feeder I held. He tried to fly away, but was still stunned and weak. He landed with his tiny Cinderella toes on my hand that held the feeder. My arm grew weary trying to hold still. I hold my breath. After a rest, then more nectar, the hummingbird zoomed off to a nearby dogwood branch.

Both of my kids were in awe of this fairy-like creature. While they had noticed hummingbirds at the feeder before, they had never really looked into the eyes of a bird this small, or examined the iridescent feathers up close. For the first time, they wondered at this birds agility and fragility. My kids were proud that we ‘saved’ this bird. Afterwards we observed the hummingbirds in our yard more closely to see if that one was the one we rescued.

That winter at least one male Anna’s Hummingbird used our feeder consistently. When the sugar solution started to freeze, I took the feeders in at night to defrost and brought them back out at 6:30 every morning (we are early risers).

By January, a male Anna’s Hummingbird in the back yard started to perch on the feeder to drink before I even could hang it up. The kids speculated that this was the same bird that we ‘saved,’ so he trusted us. We named this bird, Icy. In the morning, we took turns holding the feeder for the little bird –‘hummingbird whispering,’ we joked.

Video of “Icy” by Miko Ruhlen

When I first moved to the Gorge over a decade ago, I recall being amazed that my friend Cathy had an Anna’s Hummingbird at her feeder in a snow storm in White Salmon. This was a rare sighting to shout about. The range of the Anna’s Hummingbird has expanded northward from California over the last twenty or thirty years. This species can now be found as far north as British Columbia. Its range has expanded due for a number of reasons. Gardeners have planted a greater variety of nectar producing plants that bloom both earlier and later than native plants, and the now ubiquitous feeders also allowed them to expand northward.

Anna’s Hummingbirds survive the cold nights by going into a state of hibernation called torpor. Additionally, a large proportion of their diet consists of insects and arachnids which also helps. These days it is not unusual to see Anna’s Hummingbirds over-winter at lower elevations in the Gorge; although it is still amazing to me that these little creatures can survive our ice storms.

Every winter for the past several years we’ve continued our ‘hummingbird whispering.’ If we run late, Icy gets our attention by coming up to the sliding glass door, hovering, chirping, and peering inside, anxious for breakfast. I look forward to feeling the rush of wind from their fast wings that sound like a small helicopter; seeing the look of recognition in the eyes of a tiny being.

In March when temperatures warm up, I no longer need to take the feeders inside. By the time I get up and out, the hummingbirds have already eaten breakfast, although Icy occasionally comes up and hovers expectantly in front of me as I am leaving for work.

Once flowers start blooming and the Rufous Hummingbirds begin coming by our yard, we enjoy watching hummingbirds chase each other, seeing how how they fly from flower to flower pollinating them. We especially appreciate them checking spider webs for tasty spiders.

Did ‘saving’ and feeding one hummingbird better the survival of the species as a whole or solve habitat loss and climate change? Of course not, but sometimes the thought of global warming and mass extinctions is overwhelming. I hold my breath, stand still, wait for the whirring of wings, and connect with just one individual bird; remembering that our lives are interconnected. We rely on each other for survival on this planet. I realize that I am not really whispering anything to the hummingbird; rather in the quiet moment I am listening, hoping a little bird will tell me his secrets.

Video of Author’s son whispering in “slow-mo”