Heartless Hummingbirds, Revisited

I wrote the following post before my mother’s health turned. I post it here as originally written. An epilogue follows…

November 11, 2008

You might say my history with hummingbirds is one of wary distance and mutual disrespect (see Heartless Hummingbirds).

Since that single hummingbird visit to my feeder — clearly an act of desperation by a starving bird, followed by marked distain for all of my further attempts at hospitality, I began to see and hear hummingbirds all over town. Whipping from flower to flower, chasing each other around, sitting still in bushes and trees. They were everywhere, but not at my back porch. I decided it was time to release my resentment. My mother was the magical one who attracted her hummingbird disciples, I would have to settle for enjoying their presence in the world.

A few months later, everything changed.

It’s 7:30 am, my phone rings. I hear the machine pick up and the voice of my downstairs neighbor. “Loretta,” she tells my machine, “I’m late for work, but I wanted to let you know we have a dead bird on our steps. Would you deal with it?”

I hear her slam her door shut, head down the stairs, and close the gate.

A dead bird? Good morning to you, too, world. After an unhappy moment, I crawl out of bed to investigate.

I go down the stairs and see nothing. I figure Jane had hallucinated and head back up. Then I see it – a very small, very dead-looking hummingbird huddled in a tight ball on our cold brick steps.

It was a message from the universe: You get the dead ones – Ha ha!

I run upstairs for a box small enough for a bird-coffin, line it with a tissue, and come down to collect the body. The bird must have flown into our stairwell, gotten disoriented, maybe hit a wall in the dark, then collapsed and frozen in the cold. It was its time, and this was the place.

The body was so light, I could almost blow it into the box.

Back upstairs, I stared down at the small bird, sad and a little afraid to touch it. Emerald green feathers on his back and wings, he had a black neck and a shimmering red breast – a Ruby Necked, I thought, just like the ones that visit my mom.*

The sun streamed through the window onto the kitchen counter, so I figured – Well, it couldn’t hurt. I put the box on the counter and started washing the dishes and making coffee.

Mark wanders in, looks over my shoulder at the bird and says, “Sorry baby, it’s dead. Want me to take care of it?”

I’m gonna give it a minute, I tell him. Mark takes another look at the bird’s lifeless body, pats my shoulder, and heads to the shower.

I stand there, listening to the coffee brew and staring at the bird when it jerks, like struck by a defibrillator. Still prone, eyes shut, he slowly opens his wings to the warm sun, looking like an exhausted cormorant.

He’s alive! What do I do? My mind races, stories of my mom’s hummingbird rescues flash through my head. I rummage through my kitchen cabinet – sugar, I need sugar. I had not baked in a year – did I even have sugar?

I did! Organic turbinado sugar — not enough for a cake, but plenty for a half-dead hummingbird. But what was the ratio – one to one, one to four? I wasn’t going to let him die while I figured it out, but I didn’t want to shock his system either.

I mixed some sugar and warm water and put it in a small shallow dish I use for dipping dumplings. The hummingbird had retracted his wings, a loose bundle now, still on his side, eyes closed. Had I just seen his last gasp?

I gently shifted him so his beak lay in the sugar water. His body was lifeless. Mark wandered in for coffee, saw the situation and said, “Well, don’t drown him.”

Drown him? Did hummingbirds breathe through their beaks? Didn’t they have nostrils? I realized that for all my fondness for birds, I had no real idea about their physiology. So I raised his beak just above the syrup, just in case.

Suddenly, he started to drink. The tiniest sliver of a tongue whipped in and out, his tiny throat moving in concert. And then he stopped.

Long minutes went by with voracious drinking followed by long, maybe-he’s-really-dead-this-time breaks. But I was finally hopeful that he might make it. Then I realized I should get him outside or I might end up with an amped-up hummingbird trapped in my house. So I went to open the door to my back porch.

The storm door swung open with a bang, and he was up! Flying like a maniac, but fortunately trapping himself under the kitchen cabinet, he hit his head repeatedly against the cabinet then the wall — completely baffled by this huge, solid tree. I grabbed a tissue and trapped him gently in the corner, closing the tissue around him like a net. He was so light, I couldn’t tell if I had him, but I saw no more crazed hummingbirds whipping around the kitchen.

I stepped outside, put the tissue on the handrail, and carefully unfolded the bundle. He blinked a long moment, then he zipped up a few feet, got his bearings, and zoomed off towards the trees, dipping and swerving like someone recovering from a rough and boozy night.

I got teary-eyed, standing there staring at his trail back to life. I had saved a hummingbird — I had, perhaps, inherited the hummingbird gene from my mother.

Re-inspired, I filled my feeder with organic turbinado sugar syrup. And a week or two later, I had my first visitor.

I imagine someone spread the word, because I have several regulars now: A Calliope who likes to try the nectar from each hole in my feeder, buzzing around in a stuttering circle. A small female who always starts off hovering, then takes a seat for a good long meal. And a super-sized Black-Chinned with a flashing red neck – my mom can’t believe his size. I like to think this is my guy.

Now there are days when I am on the phone with my mom, and she says, Oh, a hummingbird! And I get to say — I have one too!

* I was wrong, it was a black-chinned hummingbird. The only local bird with a black and red neck.

Black-chinned drinking deep (video)

 

Epilogue: June 12, 2009

In February, I was called home. My mom was losing her long battle with cancer and before anyone could believe it, she was gone.

I returned to San Francisco a few weeks later. One of the first things I did was refresh the nectar in my hummingbird feeder. Over and over, every few days, I cleaned the feeder and added fresh nectar, but no one came. Ants swarmed the feeder and a rat took over the seed I put out for the blue jays and sparrows. It was a very dark time in my corner of the city.  

I figured I would never get to post the lighthearted sequel to my hummingbird saga. But just last week, from nowhere, a single hummingbird came back to the feeder. It felt like a sign, but I’m not sure of what. In any case, with this, I close this story.

My world is still dark and stormy at times, but the hummingbirds, at least, have found a way to keep flying.

The Swallows Have Arrived!

Swallows are the most impressive flyers on the planet.

When I watch swallows fly, I am certain they inspired designs for fighter planes and I hear Hollywood vrrooom and rrrreooow sounds as they bank, plummet, and turn. Happily, swallows do not wage war on civilization as we know it, but on the mosquitos and other flying insects that would otherwise annoy me as I enjoy the show.

In preparing to write about swallows, I did some googling for scientific estimates of swallow speed or impressive comparisons to human speeds. But what I found was hundreds of people amusing themselves with references to a Monty Python Holy Grail bit about the landspeed of laden and unladen swallows. So in the end, I can only tell you that one of the more serious of these people thinks an unladen swallow can hit speeds up to 24 mph.

I say this: If you compare a swallow to a car and adjust 24 mph by the general mass by which the car eclipses the swallow, you can get an idea of how fast the swallow is going by bird standards (really really fast!) and how immediately and horribly crushing it would be for the swallow to hit a tree at that speed.

(Math stopped being my strong point in tenth grade, or I would concoct an equation and add to the many silly google pages about swallow speed.)

I don’t know where the swallows went for the winter, but as spring arrived, I had been scoping out my favorite lake for their return. Finally, on May 2, they arrived.

I spent quite a few afternoons trying for a good photo, but they’re too fast, and my pocket camera completely unfit for the task. So I offer you a video and a few photos of Maryland swallows so you can get the general idea. As always, you can click the photo to see a larger version.

(The Maryland swallows strafed me for hanging out too close to their nest!)

Video: Swallows at my lake

Swallow in action

Missed it!

Rrreooow

Incoming!

Giving me the stink eye

It takes a village

Stowe Lake is a man-made lake with a large island in the middle, so it seems less like a lake than a free-form moat around a steep, wild hill. Paved walkways circumnavigate the lake, and dirt paths circle and traverse the island. Two bridges allow access to the island, one picturesque stone arch, and a paved utilitarian drive. As you circle the lake, you see a pagoda, a small falls, a boat rental spot, turtles, gulls, pigeons, ducks, geese, herons — birds galore.

If the lake were more manicured, it would seem entirely too artificial, but its age and overgrowth lend it an otherworldly air, especially when you realize it is less than 50 feet from the two main roads through the park.

Stowe Lake draws a regular and diverse local crowd. Elderly Russians pushing their unbelievably-old mothers in wheelchairs, elderly Chinese women slowly accompanying their creaky cane-assisted parents, teenage couples texting and smooching, 50-somethings powerwalking with their dogs, young parents in the paddleboats with their kids.

I usually avoid Stowe Lake because it is so well-attended, but about a month ago I had a sneaking feeling it was time to stop in for a look. And that’s when I saw my first goslings, and the following week, the ducklings. (see “Proof of Spring”)

The other day, I was tired and heading home, but I was so close to Stowe Lake I had to stop by. It was after six — the sun lowering in the sky and the wind picking up… the time when birds have their last foray into the world for a little air and a snack before settling in for the night. On that day, I saw a goose.

And then a gosling, and another gosling, and another. Then another gosling and another gosling…. That mother goose was amazing prolific, I thought. Then as the parade continued, I realized this was not a single family I was seeing at all… It was a two. Four geese, ten goslings — the children completely commingled.

The parents carefully corralled their children when grouped, then lead the way with sentries along the side and following up at the rear. No gosling was left behind.

It reminded me of elementary school field trips, but it was much more than that. It was co-parenting — sweet and amazing to see. I give you evidence of old-school, big-family parenting in the wild….

Videos:
In a row
Field trip
Heading home

Proof of Spring

First ducklings of spring!

They can walk within minutes of hatching, but I think this guy's a few days old...

How can people poison them?

Just pretty

A lucky moment (I staked out this spot for days!)

Video: On the lookout for a safe time to leave (or just twitchy)

Public Service Announcement

It’s spring. The buds and leaves sprout from the trees, the sun lingers into the evening, and despite our on-going pollution of water, land and air, the spring breeze somehow brushes in a bit of light, clean joy. And if you haven’t noticed it yet, in amongst the regular squaaawks and caaaws of your bird neighbors are the cheep-cheep-cheeps of hungry little mouths. It’s spring – and the baby birds are here!

This winter was difficult one for me. One night as I dug deep into the internet for something useful and fun to do, I came across a local ASPCA looking for extra hands from May through August. They needed, get this…. “baby bird volunteers.” They needed volunteers to help to feed and care for the baby birds that come into the center.

Need I say more?

I signed up one dark, February night and have looked forward to May several times a day ever since.

Last weekend I attended the orientation. In a room filled with kids looking for their volunteer credits, retirees, and what are probably bird-kooks like me who could be doing something more “useful” with our time, I sat and listened to Sue, a 20 year veteran of wildlife care, describe what we would do for the next several months. During the Q&A, someone asked how the baby birds arrive at the center. I’d like to pass along a few things I learned in her answer:

1.  Spring is a terrible time to trim trees – if you let it go this long, you might as well wait until fall. Or at least look carefully for nests before you hack at the branches! 

2. If you do manage to knock down a nest and the eggs have miraculously survived, leave it and leave the area. When mom or dad get back and see what happened, they might be able to figure something out. One lucky photographer documented an outraged pair of birds return to their decimated home and carefully carry each egg in their beaks one-by-one to a safer location.

3. Eggs need to be warmed and turned all the time. So if you do happen upon a nest of eggs with no parent squawking to draw your attention away, it’s probably too late. (Most centers don’t have the ability to care for eggs anyway – eggs take the love and care of a determined mamma or pappa bird…)
 
But the good news is, most birds have several clutches through the spring and summer, so there’s still hope that they found a safer nesting spot and are starting over already.

4. Once the eggs have hatched, most parent birds don’t spend much time at home – they just alight to deposit food to their fuzzy chirpies, then take off. (Human parents, don’t get any ideas!)  Parent birds need to search for food all day, and their prolonged presence at the nest draws the attention of predators.

So if you see an “abandoned” nest of baby birds, watch the nest every moment – don’t blink, don’t make yourself a sandwich, don’t go to the bathroom – for at least an hour before you decide to climb up and “save” them.

4. Even when the baby birds are mobile and waddling their way to, say, the lake with no parents in sight, don’t think they’re abandoned. Mom and dad aren’t too far away – they’re just letting their kids learn and grow, and probably having some well-deserved food and personal time.

And finally…

5. Many baby birds spend 3-5 days on the ground hopping around before they “fledge” (learn to fly). So if you are lucky enough to see a few chirpies pathetically trying to get some lift out of their still-fuzzy wings, not quite making it to the lowest branch, don’t run over with a shoebox to save them. Momma bird in the branch overhead might swoop in and peck at your eye…

This concludes this public service announcement. Enjoy the spring and look for birds!

Heartless Hummingbirds

I’ve been harboring a secret grudge against hummingbirds for a while now.

Since the day my mother hung a discreet single-hole hummingbird feeder on the porch, the hummingbirds have loved her. They duck and swerve in territorial battle for the honor of hovering beautifully in flight, bobbing and sipping at her feeder.

Over time, my mom has saved several from Merciless Nature – warming a nearly frozen bird from her porch, and freeing one caught in a tight cocoon of webs and leaves. After the second salvation, I understood that my mother was a hummingbird whisperer, perhaps even hummingbird goddess. My mother loved her hummingbirds, and they worshipped her.

Last summer, thinking to follow in her footsteps, I found a spot for my own hummingbird feeder. A clever spot, viewable from both my kitchen and bedroom windows. My mom warned me against fancy gimmicky feeders. Unable to find her tried-and-true version, I opted for a 4-port relatively simple feeder that I could strap to the railing of my back steps. I filled it with extra-sweet sugar water and I waited.

And waited…

And waited.

Every day as I worked from my bedroom I stared out at the unused hummingbird feeder. Ants and bees found it, but no hummingbirds.

Be patient, my mom advised. It takes them a while to find a new feeder. Just keep the sugar-water fresh and they will come.

I faithfully rinsed and refilled the feeder once a week for months, adjusting the sugar-to-water ratio hopefully. Still nothing.

So you understand the injustice, San Francisco’s moderate temperatures are a hummingbird haven. We have hummingbirds all year long and six different species of hummingbirds live in the bay area, but I had yet to see a single one.

In contrast, Maryland (and all states east of the Mississippi) gets only one variety, but one of the most spectacular: the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. As they summer in Maryland, they visit their Queen Mother morning, noon, and night, performing acrobatics to please her. It is a rare summer phone conversation that is not interrupted with a – Oh, oh, he’s back! Look at that!

That’s great, I say. But I’m thinking: Damned hummingbirds.

I didn’t mean it entirely – I’m old enough to know you have to appreciate the beautiful moments that life gives you: the bus showing up on a rainy day just as you reach the bus stop, making it to a gas station after driving 30 miles on empty – but I was a little bitter. Once again, the universe was telling me that I was not capable of following in my mother’s gigantic footsteps. And what more could I possibly do? Mix some meth with the organic sugar from Rainbow?

In the meantime, Mom kept sending one beautiful picture after another of her faithful disciples. That’s right, the hummingbirds visited long enough for her to grab her camera and take pictures – lots and lots of pictures.

Then winter approached and the first blustery storm hit. It was a long one – knocking down branches and leaves and blowing the remaining summer flowers off their stems. In the late afternoon, we got a lull in the storm. People hurried out to move their cars and bring in their trash and recycling bins. I was in the kitchen washing dishes when I saw him…

A very wet hummingbird was perched on my feeder, drinking deeply. His feathers were so dark from the rain I could not distinguish colors or markings. He was not flitting or flying, he was just sitting there, his needle-like beak so deep in the feeder I was afraid he was stuck. I had never seen a hummingbird sitting still. Wings tucked, he was about the size of my thumb, a little rounder, but probably much, much lighter.

He pulled out his beak and sat, dazed. Then he zipped two feet straight up, hovered a nanosecond – and he was gone.

I ran out, refreshed the feeder – which I hadn’t cleaned or filled in a month – and called my mom. I was thrilled, it was the beginning of my new life with hummingbirds.

Except it wasn’t. I kept the feeder fresh and filled all winter long and not a single bird visited again.

Damned hummingbirds.

(to be continued…)

Mom’s disciples:

Mom’s hummingbird pictures

General Information:
Hummingbird Facts

The Cormorant Cunundrum

After hearing about my budding interest in birds, my dear friend Kathleen brought me a collection of essays by naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt entitled Rare Encounters with Everyday Birds.

I read along happily, emitting random chirps of joy at her charming stories and insights.  Then I got to her essay on the cormorant.  The luckless waterbird had apparently been cast aside by the Western bird community as ugly, uninteresting, and unevolved – basically less bird than thou.  The hapless bird was also vilified by the fishing community for poaching their crop – which they probably did, but not enough to justify the “culling” free-for-all the EPA granted, especially when compared to the effects of other birds and environmental changes.

The cormorant was considered less-evolved because it did not waterproof its feathers like most waterbirds (ergo their classic air-dry, spread-wing stance).  Less-interesting because it was too easy to find and study.  And ugly because it was black and had a “reptilian” appearance.  It was considered dangerous to the fishing industry because it was there.

While I can’t pretend to understand the impulses of individuals who breed/capture/kill living creatures on an industrial level, I was shocked to find a birder pissing on any particular bird.  Is one bird really better than another?  Apparently, the answer was yes.  Haupt admitted her original prejudice, but also her shock at the stiff-kneed stance writers of the bird canon took on this point.

Happily, I was unaware of western bird bias when I first encountered the cormorant.  This was in China, fifteen years ago, on the Li River where fishermen have raised and trained cormorant to fish since 317 B.C.E.  According to Haupt, a fisherman trains cormorant hatchlings to return fish seven out of eight times, allowing the bird to have the eighth catch.  In practice, a tether around the neck prevents the cormorant from eating larger fish but allows smaller ones to pass through.  But the cormorant often refuse to continue after the seventh dive until the tether is removed, proving their ability to learn and count at least up to eight – which is seven more than my cat and at least three more than my tax guy.

When I saw my first cormorant, I was unaware of this bounty of trivia as well.  All I saw was a large dark bird with an elegant long neck on the bow of a narrow bamboo raft.  An equally slim man at the rear used a bamboo pole to move and guide the boat.  He calls out to the bird in a local dialect and the cormorant takes wing, skims the surface of the river, then dives in.  His heavy bones and water-trapping feathers, I know now, help him reach the fecund depths of the river.*  And his four webbed toes, to the top-riding duck’s measly three, propel him fast and far.

After an impossibly long disappearance, the cormorant arises and heads back with the slow flapping wings of a powerful bird at quarter speed.  He lands, drops his catch into the basket in the center of the boat, and returns placidly to his spot at the bow.  The fisherman sings an ancient song of thanks.

It was a legacy of a different time – when humans were aware and respectful of the powers of the creatures around them.  Eastern cultures celebrate the cormorant and provide for them well. 

There are lessons to be learned here.  Or maybe just broad generalizations to make. . . .

While I understand the desire to obsessively note, categorize, and classify the world around us in an attempt (I hope) to sift through knowledge and deepen understanding, this all too often shifts to the tendency to assign values to those classifications: striking, rare, useful, odd. . . tall, athletic, symmetric, blonde.  And once you take a personal bias and justify it in reason, you’re headed towards some dark murky waters.

Western birders didn’t like the cormorant because it was strange-looking and black?

Trust no one.

 

* up to 55 – 60 meters deep

Low Rider: local cormorant taking it easy

Ready to eat?

The Air-Dry Stance

In the Galapagos

Batik from China

Optional Reading

General Information:
Cornell University’s Bird Guide
Photos:
PBase photos

Gawking at Geese

Clearly, my ideas of posting some well-written, carefully considered piece of writing every week was too ambitious.  So just some quick thoughts this time:

If you live in San Francisco (especially near Golden Gate park) and hear some geese honking overhead, look up.  Odds are good you’ll see two full-sized Canadian geese and two miniatures.  Exact same coloring and proportions, but one third the size!

I don’t know if they’re in the same family, but I saw a string of baby geese a month ago by Stowe Lake.  It’s amazing how fast kids grow up….

Last month…

Go away NOW.

Babies facing off

Did you know that Canadian Geese are actually Canada Geese? Anyone saying anything else is apparently *not* a birder.  But as an English major and theoretically, a writer, I say when everyone knows what you’re saying — even when it’s wrong — that’s that.  And in a few years, the dictionaries will make it official.

FYI, from now on, I’ll be posting optional reading about whatever it is I’m writing about.  Those will also end up in the sidebar on the right.

That’s it for now. Keep your ears open…

More about geese:
Fun:
Great Plains Nature Center
Facts:
Cornell University’s Bird Guide

Mallard Mayhem

The Mallards are cracking me up.

If you’ve been anywhere near a body of water, you’ve probably seen a Mallard – the males have green shiny heads, the typical duck shape, and a stunning purple wing patch.  They’re what we think of when we think of ducks.*

With their ubiquiosity, you might not look twice anymore.  They’re kids’ birds — floating placidly in pairs, sleeping on the bank with heads tucked under wing — borrr-ing.  Nothing like a flashy heron or hawk.

But have you seen a Mallard in the springtime?  They might look like portraits of marital harmony the rest of the year, but like most birds, Mallards pair off in the spring.  And it ain’t pretty.

It’s spring in San Francisco and the Mallards are going bonkers.

Mallard Mack:  I’m just floating around with my girl, Martha.  Boy, it is a nice sunny day on our lake.

Mallard Chip:  Quack, I’m ansy.  Quack, where are all the chicks?

Mallard Chuck:  QUACK, me too.  Quack quack.

Mallard Chester:  Quack.  What’s up with this — we hit the wrong lake?

Mallard Chip:  Wait, quack, check her out — over by the old bird. . . QUACK QUACK quack, you know what I mean.

Mallard Chuck:  Yeah, but, quack quack, he’s pretty big.

Mallard Chip:  He’s quack quack oooold.  We can take him, easy — come on, quack quack, winner gets the girl. . . .

The young punks ease over, paddling soft, approaching the couple.  Mack catches on and turns for a face off.  Chipper with his beak gives Mack a poke.  Mack pokes him back — poke, poke.  

Chip goes in again, his buddies backing him up, poke Poke, POKE!  They all get into it, wings flapping, water spashing everywhere! 

Martha backs away as her mate Mack fends them off valiantly.  Before long, Martha’s had enough of the splashing (Birds!) and takes wing. 

In a craze of wings and water, they all follow.  Mack catches up and blocks the challenging juveniles from her tail.  They circle the lake, wing up and over the tall pines, then come back for a landing, Mack’s position still intact. 

The young punks land and catch their breath a safe distance away.  It’s a standoff, for now.  

After a while, they creep close again – poke. . . .

So the next time you look up and think those Mallards are just flying around having fun, take a closer look — if you see a brown female in the lead, and buncha males following, you know it’s spring. I got ten bucks on Mack.  

 

* Live ducks that is. My dad thinks of crisp brown skin and hoisin sauce.

P.S. I didn’t have my camera on that eventful day, but they were still at it days later…