Hummers...

(... the nice kind!)

We watched a particularly lovely episode in the PBS "Nature" series last night, called Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air. I have always been enchanted by these truly magical little creatures, and I learned a whole lot more about them from the program. I did not know, for example, that they are found only on the continent of the Americas; that there are close to 350 distinct species; that, inches long themselves, they migrate literally thousands of miles each year; that some species cross the Gulf of Mexico, 5oo miles in a single flight, with no place to rest or replenish their resources; that their hearts beat regularly at 600 beats minute, rising to double that number in flight--and dropping to a mere 35 beats per minute at night, when they enter into a period of "torpor", akin to a brief daily hibernation. I learned that there is no protein in the nectar they find in flowers, and that they must supplement this diet with insects, which they catch in flight with wide open bills (not chopstick-fashion, then!) I learned that survival for them is a constant struggle to maintain sufficient nutrition to support their enormous expenditure of calories in their darting flights and hoverings...

All this, as they say, and much, much more. Still more compelling than all this fascinating information, though, was the stunning photography of these birds in flight and at rest. Super high speed video technology has allowed those who study them to capture amazing pictures, still and moving, of their brilliant plumage and their inimitable motion, their surprisingly aggressive territorial battles, their mating habits, their nesting and the raising of their young. I have a new respect for these tiny fellow-travelers, some of whom are frequent visitors in our Laguna Beach Garden, which they love for the brightness of our flowers and shrubs. I have mentioned in the past, I think, what a special joy it is, during meditation, to hear their distinctive hum close to my head as I sit there with closed eyes. It is perhaps fanciful to imagine that they approach me out of curiosity, to find out who this person is, sitting there so still in what they take to be their territory--and we take to be ours! They come so close, I sometimes wonder if they might be evaluating the fine strands of my gray hair as promising material for their nests; but none has ever dared to steal one, to my knowledge!

It's good to know that we share our planet with such beautiful and marvelously skillful beings. Their presence here--unlike our own, alas!--is entirely beneficent, and brings nothing but joy to the human eye and heart. If I believed in God, I would be thanking him or her daily for the gift of hummingbirds.