Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Hummingbird Rescue

A picture's worth a thousand words! In the background you can see the Shetland geese and my little garden. In my hand is the hummingbird I found exhausted on the floor of my barn the other day.
It's so cool to hold a hummingbird in your hand! They are so tiny. My son took photos of this one next to a ruler, but they were too blurry to share.

This isn't the first time I've rescued a hummingbird. I've found them in our garage in the same condition. The poor things fly into buildings through the open doors and then can't find their way out. It doesn't take long for them to use up all their energy trying to exit through a closed window.
When I find them I mix up some corn syrup and water to administer with an eye dropper. No eye dropper on hand these days, so I used an old plastic straw. This one didn't really drink much, but in about an hour, she was able to fly away.

Here she is almost ready to take off. I knew she was starting to feel better when her feet starting gripping my hand again and her eyes stayed open longer. But she spent another 10-15 minutes recuperating after this photo was taken. Then I put her onto the plant and turned to grab the camera for one last photo. When I looked back she was gone. I hope she's doing okay.

7 comments:

  1. Thank you for taking such good care of the little one. She is beautiful. God Bless and fly free little one.

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  2. Thanks for sharing! Such a wonderful opportunity, and now I know what to do for one if I find it like that!

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  3. VERY cool, Becky! I once held a hummingbird (that had flown up against the patio fence in my backyard and knocked itself momentarily senseless) in my hand and remember being stuck by the almost 'spiritual' experience that holding such a little miracle was! I felt truly honored to have had the experience.

    I was a bit stunned when I came to your blog. Yours is the first blog that I've read today and I was just thinking about posting to mine (while I was doing the dishes) and decided that I was going to title today's post: "Sometimes a Thousand Words Are Better Than a Picture" ~~~ then I came to your blog! I wanted to find a cheerful site to link people to if they didn't want to read my post today. Yours will do quite nicely, thank you! ;-)

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  4. She's lovely. I hope she is doing well. :-)

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  5. We had the privilige of helping a hummingbird and its the most awesome thing. I didnt even thing Of giving it something to eat. Next time we will know!!

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  6. Oh...I've always wondered what it would be like to hold one. How nice that you could help out! We've got them, too and this is the first year I've seen a fledgling. Great post!

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  7. Too cool! I'm sure she's doing just fine.

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Getting ready for Christmas Markets!

  I'll be doing two Christmas markets this year. The first one is at Sapsucker Farms in Brook Park, MN Nov. 18-19th. And the second one ...