Instead of going to the gym, I got my cardio when a
hummingbird flew into the house. These birds are so dumb, I thought.
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But then I remembered, I’m the dummy who routinely leaves
the sliding doors open so the dog, a yellow Lab mix, can come in and out as she
pleases. In other words, I’m lazy and I don’t want to get up to let Bella in
and out every time she has a whim… which is about every ten minutes.
Leaving the doors open is one of the perks of living in a
place without tons of insects. It’s a habit that never would have flown when we
lived in Kansas. There, June bugs are bigger than hummingbirds. Like
moths, they crash against the coach lights on the porch and invite themselves
in if you so much as crack open the door to let the cat out. When the kids were
young, we had what John called The Nightly Bug Watch.
“Daddy! There’s a spider on the ceiling.”
“Something’s buzzing in my room!”
As if my night owls needed any more excuses not to go to
sleep.
It’s not the first time we’ve had a hummingbird in the
house. Last time, the little iridescent angel fluttered her way up into one of
the skylights. Yep, I’m pretty sure it was a “she” because, despite thrashing
herself repeatedly toward the heavens, she couldn’t break through the glass
ceiling.
We cooed and pleaded with her for an hour before she was
worn out and agreed to sit on the broom John offered as a conveyance. He then
carried her oh so gingerly, a princess on a sedan chair, and released her
to freedom.
The fluttery home invasion was an annoying consequence of
leaving the doors open. I was sure it was a onetime thing and reasonable
tradeoff. I’d begun to feel a mystic connection to the thrumming throngs who
spent their days slurping homemade red nectar from tacky hardware store feeders
on our deck.
My Grammy would have had a canary. She said a bird in the
house means there’ll be a death in the family. It was one of her many
superstitions. She had a conniption if anyone opened an umbrella in the house
and refused to leave a place from a different door than she entered.
When something flew past the dining room table in a blur
this morning, I thought it was a dragonfly. It took a left when it got to the
kitchen and began flinging itself against the glass door in the living room. It
was pretty—shiny and green with a tinge of bright pink. I wondered if its long,
pointy beak could hurt me.
Why does this have to
happen when John’s not here?
I jumped up and ran, slid open the screen door and fluttered
the sheer drapes as my heart pounded, but I couldn’t coax the bird to the left,
despite asking it nicely and reasoning with it.
“See? Just a little bit that way, buddy, and you’ll be on
your way.”
“Come on… puh-leeeeeaaaase….”
As dainty as hummingbirds are, they’re brains must be
miniscule. The thing was a mere three feet from freedom and didn’t understand
any of my instructions, poor thing. So much for my delusion of having some
mystical psychic connection…
I waved an embroidered throw pillow at it. It must have been
tired, because it settled in the slivery track of the sliding door. I tried to
urge it to the left again, this time with a New
York magazine. I was afraid to make contact because it seemed so delicate. I was afraid I’d hurt it… or worse.
Suddenly Bella was in on the act. She’d been leaping at it
from outside but now barreled into the house and pounced onto the spot where
the bird was resting.
“Leave it! Leave it! Leave it!” I ordered. One of my
favorite commands from basic dog training, although I sounded more hysterical than authoritative.
Bella backed off. The hummingbird didn’t make a move. I
couldn’t tell if it was breathing; it seemed perfectly still.
Ugh. Either Bella squashed it or it just wore itself out and
had a heart attack.
Now I’d be forced to touch it. I wasn’t sure how to dispose of
the ill-fated hummer. My gut told me if I tossed it over the rail of the deck
and into the slope-y canyon below that it would, at least, be returned to the
wild and decompose. Nature would take its course. If that meant coyotes or crows or a
Cooper’s hawk, so be it.
I went to the garage for my gardening gloves. I really
didn’t want to touch it, but I wanted a dead bird in my house even less. A dead bird in the house! What would Grammy
have said about this?
I picked up the fragile little birdie by the tail and carried
it outside at arm’s length. Heart still racing, I walked quickly to the edge of
the deck and flung it.
But instead of dropping onto the hillside below, the
hummingbird beat its wings, took flight and disappeared into the hot white sky.
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