Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds have been on my mind lately. I think it is because of seeing them at key moments in the movie Benjamin Button. The Captain on the tug boat was fascinated with them in the movie and would talk about them at great length. He would discuss how many times their small wings would beat in a minute. I don't know but somehow that hummingbird that appeared in the middle of a growing hurricane at the hospital window could be anyone of us at some point in our lives. The footage of that little bird up against the glass in the driving rain and window stayed in my thoughts. I started to think of some of the hummingbirds I had known and seen in my life.
The first humming bird I saw was in the U.S.A. It was a Ruby Throat ed Hummingbird and boy did it zing around from flower to flower. Later while in bordering school in Canada a ruby throat ed hummingbird flew into the classroom on the second floor of our school. It was trying to escape by attempting to fly through a pane of glass. I guess that is something we all try to do if school is not your cup of tea. The little bird was low enough down the window for me to reach and carefully grab him off the bottom pane. The bird did not struggle but rested in the darkness of my two clasped hands. I carefully carried him out of the building and across a green field to a near bye forest. Looking around I found a little bush about six feet tall and placed the hummingbird carefully on one of the small upper branches. He rested there in the branches completely exhausted by his encounter with the classroom windows. I left him there to recover and checked the bush a few hours later and he was gone.
When ever I have visited the East coast, hummingbirds seemed to cross my path. Maybe the word got out about my good deed in Canada. Last time I was in the USA one hovered right above my head like a little guardian as I photographed a flower in the late orange light of afternoon. It goes for certain that I consider Hummingbirds my friends. Indeed I know that they beat their wings fifty three times a second.I also know that the Ruby Throat ed Hummingbird is the only hummingbird that breeds in Eastern North America. They are only three to four inches long and their wingspan matches their body length.These birds are true feather weights, as they only consists of two to six grams.Their small backs are an iridescent green and the male hummingbirds have the iridescent throat of red, that they are named after.These birds have big hearts though and in Migration season they fly straight across the Gulf of Mexico to winter in South America. If you are in a garden this spring and the flowers are in bloom look out for one of my friends and know if you see one they will transfix you with their beauty and grace.