A Playful Hummingbird
When living in Arizona, in my front garden, I purposely planted some flowers that butterfly’s and hummingbirds would like. During spring of that year, I started seeing a baby hummingbird. She was a very pretty green color accented with brown and gold.
It was such a joy to see her swoop in and sip the nectar from the different flowers. One day, something very fun, unexpected and special happened. . .
My front garden is a baby garden. I have baby trees that are happily growing, African daisies, flowering desert plants and a red stick cactus. Making it the perfect place for a baby hummingbird!
As accents, there are wind chimes, little windmills, cute little flower people, an elf and a kinetic mobile in the garden. A cute garden deserves to have cute stuff!
In order to water the garden, I used a drip hose system. The hose wound its way around the different plants and every two days I watered the garden.
Well, the hose was about a year old and it had sprung a few leaks making the water shoot out in an arch. The leaks are small with a little stream of water shooting out in different areas. I had considered changing the hose because of the leak.
However, something happened that changed my mind.
On that day, I did my morning routine of watering my gardens including turning on the drip hose in the front garden. I let the cats out for their morning “yard inspection” so they could find bugs, watch birds (I’m sure they watch birds for different reasons than I do), eat grass and hang out. I got the household started and took a few minutes for myself to decide how my day is going to go.
So, there I was, sitting on the couch, looking out the bay window – the one that gives a view of the front garden – and watching birds near and far when my baby hummingbird arrived giving me the most fun and cutest show I had ever seen!!
It seems to me that hummingbirds flit in and out of space because of the speed of their wings – they’re like little angels that grace our lives by flitting in and out of the universe.
Anyways, the baby hummingbird flitted into the front garden – appearing and disappearing instantly then appearing again but in a different place. She went around and drank the nectar. I thought it was a great way to begin my day with such a lovely display.
She didn’t stop there though.
I didn’t understand what she was doing at first as she hovered in the air staying in one place and then flitted to a branch on one of the trees. Then she went back to the place where she was hovering. While staying still in midair, she first lifted one wing and then the other, then went and clung onto the pole holding up the kinetic mobile. A moment later, she went back to the place to again hang in place in midair.
It didn’t take me long to realize that the hummingbird was using the little stream of water that was springing out from the hose to take a bath!
Oh! The antics!
First she was in the stream of water getting soaked, then flitting to the nearby tree to get her wings dried enough to fly. Then back in the water turning this way and that. Then to the top of the kinetic mobile and then in the water again. At one point, she clung onto the plant where the stream of water hit and just luxuriated in being soaked. Then she shook herself off and flitted away again.
I had gotten off of the couch and was kneeling on the floor to be as close to the window as I possibly could. I was trying my hardest not to make any noise as I didn’t want to scare her off as she was bathing and playing in the water. My affinity for her rose very high as I watched!
As if it wasn’t fun enough to be privileged to see a hummingbird play in water, she had another surprise for me.
Magical creatures obviously know things that mere mortals can only fathom. And, this is where she proved that she was something more that just a bitsy, fast bird…
She finished bathing and rose right in front of the window I was staring out of – just slightly above my eye level. She stretched her wings wide – she seemed to become giant for some reason – and looked right at me as she did a little aerial dance for her audience of one and then flew off to make her rounds in the neighborhood.
I didn’t get rid of that drip hose!
ILIA
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