Fleeting Fledgling Love

Curiosity, fearlessness, and new life

Rufous Hummingbird, watercolor and pencil

My apologies for being absent for three weeks. I was sicker than I’ve been in 15 years with a non-Covid-19 upper respiratory infection and lying on the couch in a dogpile watching the entirety of “This Is Us” for the first time. (What amazing writing. Anyway…) These weeks left me with a lot of thoughts about connecting, community, and, friends. To be alone when you are too sick to ask for help is to be alone indeed and this needs rectifying in my life, but I also thought a lot about the natural world and what it has to teach me about this. So, this first essay, after a bit of an absence, addresses the first of these ponderings.

A few days ago, I was standing in my garden, my attention focused on one of my container ponds, when a fledgling hummingbird was suddenly beak-to-nose with me. I stood up slowly, the hummingbird following my rise as I grinned ear-to-ear.

I glanced at the hummingbird feeder, which was still half full and realized that I wasn’t being scolded and bossed, but rather examined.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m the human who will be your slave for as long as you choose this path for your migration. Nice to meet you, little one.”

I got no answer from hummingbird, who remained peering into my soul long enough to make things uncomfortable, but ultimately zoomed away to do hummingbird things.

There is something I deeply love about early summer, and it is mostly about fledglings. There is a short period in a bird’s life where they learn the hard way about all there is to fear. So much of that fear is rightly anchored in humans, but for a minute, in their freshly minted ability to fly, they just don’t know better. They believe that their wings keep them safe.

It is especially charming in raptors who we revere for their cunning ability to hunt. Yet, they still must mostly figure it out on their own. Their parents give them a few weeks of dropping prey that requires a tussle, but that isn’t the only lesson that needs absorbing. They must learn that wet feathers won’t lift them and playing in the sprinklers of a grass-loving human means not being able to fly. They must learn that domesticated animals like dogs and cats don’t fly or play nicely on the ground. Fledgling bird speak to my Gen-X sensibilities. Send them out to play. Tell them to come back when street lights come on and they are hungry. Assume that they will figure it the hard way and still be okay.

Anna’s hummingbird, watercolor and pencil

Fledgling birds examine people in their space with this whole-hearted examination that opens the possibility of being a friend rather than foe. I’m not sure when the switch flips (and it always does) but for a moment, fledging birds believe that all things are possible and that human beings most likely, are friends.

Yesterday, as I suffered the early July heatwave with the rest of nature’s companions, I again met a fledging, a house finch who was seeking a quick drink from my container pond of lotus, lilies, papyrus, and medaka fish. She was less than a foot from where I stood, and I held as still as I could. She looked me over, considered carefully, and then took a drink while giving me the side-eye.

There is such an innocence in these newly flighted creatures that I have perhaps never experienced second-hand, perhaps because I’ve never had children. Yet, every year, I wonder what they could teach me. How much more open would I be as blank slate. Life is gentle on humans, but it roughs you up on the edges by the time you are 50. Not all of life’s lessons are the truth. They are just learned. They are simply our experience. Experience is luck, both good and bad.

What would the world look like to me if I could be a fledgling, when all things are possible, including the benevolence of humans? I couldn’t say, but I really want to try. The effort might be futile. The splinters in my heart are deep and driven there by bad experiences. Yet, I really want to know what bridges I could build if I approached the world with such an innocent view and the belief that the universe is constructed on a connection as simple as being nose-to-bill with a fearless hummingbird.

I think it might be worth the effort to at least try.