Beautiful Bird - Paul Gillam
On average, the hummingbird’s heart beats one thousand two hundred times per minute. That’s one thousand one hundred twenty beats per minute more than the average human heart. It weighs less than a nickel and can flap its wings up to eighty times per second. One would need fifteen thousand hummingbirds to balance a scale with the average human, and, well, we don’t even have wings. Their metabolism is the highest of any vertebrate, and because so, each day they need to eat more than half their body weight in nectar. We took it upon ourselves to help.
The feeders were our Covid project, a replacement for professional sports and friends. Two are seed feeders, strung-up in the understory of our towering sycamore, for the songbirds that populate the fourteen trees that shade our house. The other, clamped to the deck, is for hummingbirds. The three feeders quickly became a staple of our yard, and will be, at least until all forty pounds of birdseed we bought are gone. Long hours of crosswords, books, and coffee on the deck gave Mom, Dad, Margaret, and me plenty of time with our feathered friends, and friends they were. I lived for the sun peeking through the sycamore branches, warming the crisp morning air, and the shrill symphony of bird-chatter, which could drown out the occasional lawn mower or car that drove by. The deck was a piece of heaven, and the birds were like angels, praising their creator in song, glorifying God in the highest branches of the trees. They sang beautifully — well the ones that could did. The hummingbirds never partook. Song simply wasn’t their gift. I don’t think they felt left out, though — they were beautiful in other ways.
Some mornings, we sat for nearly an hour, eyes on the seed feeders because they were always busy. More often than not, chickadees nervously flitted about from branch to branch, keeping an eye out for the bully cowbirds, who dominated the feeder. Most of the other birds got along well enough. Cardinals, who were lovebirds, commanded respect, but gave respect in return, a far cry from the robins who never received the respect they deserved, even from us.
When we weren’t watching the seed feeders, we watched the hummingbird feeder, a small glass bottle filled with sugar water that gravity pulled into a black metal base, decorated with porous red flowers and a small perch for tiny feet. Only a few hummingbirds visited each week, and when they did rarely would they stay for more than a couple seconds. It was like watching for a shooting star.
We would never hear them approach. The hum of their powerful wings couldn’t be heard except for on the quietest of days, and even then, it was easily mistaken for a housefly. Their motion, however, gave them away. Few other things moved with such movement. Wings ablur, their bodies seemed to glide through the air, coming to rest, still afloat, to feed. If one landed on the tiny perch, we could see its little chest heave. Such a tiny heart, hammering away inside toothpick ribs, was incomprehensible. One thousand, two hundred beats per minute. Unbelievable.
Although we couldn’t hear them if we tried, silence was mandatory. Mouth often open, its corners slightly curled, I was motionless. We all were. The hummingbird moved enough for all of us. When on the deck, we whispered “hummingbird,” cutting off whoever was speaking, so the moment could be shared. If inside, “hummingbird!” would ring through the house, followed by Mom’s pounding footsteps, and a partial family gathering. It was like Christmas morning — the bird was Saint Nick, and we were the wide-eyed children, cherishing the gifts it brought. By myself the moment was silent; with my family the moment was still. Arguments and frustrations were forgotten, but for a moment, while beauty overtook us.
We watched as it fed, its body twisting this way and that, oscillating around its spinal axis, as it accounted for the breeze or, if we were really lucky, the wind from another hummingbird’s wings. Each of its nine hundred feathers were glowing in the sun’s rays. Its head dipping towards the feeder to lap up its meal, the bird never fed for more than a moment — its tongue could lick up to fifteen times per second. We could never see this, but that’s that the internet said. We also learned that hummingbirds don’t suck. Their tongues have capillary action along their fringes, drawing into their throats sugar, which they swallow after they feed to convert into energy. The bird is among the most efficient in this conversion, with a ninety seven percent conversion efficiency from sugar to energy. Humans hover around fifty percent for the same metric. We can’t compare.
It is precisely for this reason, I believe, hummingbirds are so beautiful. They’re charged with grandeur in a way I will never be. Even in its most menial actions, its mindless instinct, it can’t help but praise its creator. This ability is never spent. Yet I not only get to share in that praise, but also share it. Seeing a hummingbird was never kept to oneself. When gathered for dinner, we often debriefed our birds from the day. Most of the time we’d tell about a cardinal, but always about a hummingbird. We watched, we experienced together. The deck was our deck and the feeders our feeders. By myself, a hummingbird, was a delight, but with another, it was truly beautiful.
I’m still unsure what was the project, the feeders or my family, or both. The hummingbirds didn’t need the feeders, but maybe we needed them. Maybe we didn’t have enough beauty in our lives, or possibly we weren’t aware of the beauty we had.