Eulogy for a Humming bird
A conversation I had just over a week ago sent my writing muse heading for the hills. We had been dancing in the exhilaration of sharing things that matter. Then got confronted by the point of view paradox. When she went into hiding my stream of consciousness writing went with her. Thankfully she is ready to reemerge today.
Photo 1: Rosebud in the rain
The impact of the disappearance of my muse was further confounded by one of the saddest events I’ve had to witness – the death of a mother humming bird and her two hatchlings.
There was such joy when the humming bird first started nesting in the large rosebush outside our front door. Every time I stepped out she would fly around in front of me and I wondered why she was there so often. Then my very observant husband (and fellow blogger at Remarkable Runs) pointed out the tiny nest. It was even cuter to see two tiny eggs inside!
Photo 2: Mother Humming bird on her nest in a rose bush (photo by Robin Thomas)
Then we had a heavy rainstorm. The following day I didn’t see her at all. On the second day I stood on a chair to peek into the nest and saw two tiny baby humming birds. I don’t deal with animals in distress very well – I found it very traumatic. So the first thing I did was to Google hummingbirds! The advice was to leave the nest alone as sometimes it would look abandoned but the mother would be out searching for food.
I went about my usual tasks and it was only later that afternoon when I went to check on the nest that I noticed her tiny crumpled corpse on the pebbles below the rosebush – she had perished in the storm. My heart broke. Then I went to look up how to feed the hatchlings. The prognosis did not look good as they don’t survive very long without regular feeding and they were so little that their chances were minimal anyway. When I checked later only the slightly larger one was still alive but I did not expect it to last much longer and I knew I had to let nature take its course.
I walked passed the rose bush with a heavy heart and my eyes kept going to the little nest. The next day I could not believe it when the hatchling was still alive! Such agony! I had to try something so brought the nest inside and tried to feed it but it was too little too late.
Later the afternoon the kids and I had a little funeral for the baby birds. We spoke about how lovely it was to see the mother fly, how brave she was to sit on the nest through the storm. How much she loved her little ones that she gave her life to protect them. How brave of the baby bird to fight to live without its mother.
Each day is a gift we must treasure.
Good bye little hummingbirds and thanks for bringing the joy of nature to our front door and reminding us about the circle of life.