A baby hummingbird

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I started writing this blog entry a couple days ago. I got as far as "This is pretty much the best day ever" but it is not going to end up that way. I want to stop having bad endings so I will keep the sad stuff to a minimum... more for me probably than for you.

One of my goals at the center is to rehab a hummingbird and release it. I can not imagine anything more rewarding than that and one day it will happen. The hummingbird, which I will call Anna for short, is a Anna's Hummingbird fledgling. She was found on the ground near Campball Hall at UCSB, where years ago I previously spent many afternoons napping in Art History class. Sorry Mom. So, my task is to feed the hummingbird nectar using a dropper every 30 minutes. Feeding Anna is such small increments ended up being not as bad as it sounded, I probably even feed her every 20 minutes. I just felt so priveldged and motivated with this bird. Once the bird fell asleep, it was asleep. Nothing could wake her up. I read that their waking heart rate of 1260 beats per minute drastically drops to only 50 beats per minute during sleep. Crazy. Once awake, Anna did well. She took her first flight, started eating out of the dropper on her own and chirped at me. The following morning, she was fine. She even tried to fly out of her cage. As the day progressed, Anna just stood in the same place, eyes closed and chirping every 3 seconds. I took to her to Vanessa at the Cat and Bird clinic, where she basically died on the spot. Vanessa came over to break the news that she passed away and slowly opened her hands up to show her to me. Staring at her tiny tongue sticking out of her beak, I left there crying like a little baby with that image burned in memory forever. I had such high hopes for such a fragile bird. I miss that silly little bird that I named Anna.


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