Jose and his new friend, a rufus hummingbird, become acquainted…
What a day, and it's not even noon. Jose, the redtail chick with all the bluster and bravado in the nest over our house, decided to try out his wings today. His experiment didn't work so well at first and he landed atop the huge pile of bark mulch in our front yard. We watched from the dining room window as he tried to figure out what to do next, as his parents were off hunting and he’d forgotten to plug in his cell phone.
Alas, he finally hopped down off the pile and tried out his legs, walking over to the cottonwoods along the edge of our property, probably thinking (perhaps) that was a nice safe place to wait for assistance from a parent. I slipped out the front door and walked to a spot about thirty feet away and sat down. He knows us, so he didn't seem at all disturbed by my presence, but his hawk-eyes were definitely fixed on me and mine on him. For the longest time. Thirty minutes? Forty? I didn't move. Until, to my astonishment, a baby rufus hummingbird swooped in and hovered right in front of Jose and the two of them took a long moment filled with curiosity to check each other out.
I've had the opportunity to capture many astounding things with a camera...but this one leans into the miracle category...I got to watch this moment of discovery with my own eyes…
A few minutes later mom arrived and took her favorite perch on a limb in the silver leaf poplars. She let out a loud SCREECH and that seemed to be enough encouragement for Jose to try again. He lifted off the ground and struggled to climb but those wings lifted him up to a skinny branch where he landed and gathered his wits…before leaping into the air for the real thing, a test flight soaring in circles high above our heads…it was a beautiful thing to watch. Nora and I didn’t say a word…we just looked at each other and smiled. And smacked our hands together…witness to these tiny miracles…
This is what we all should be doing: sitting and watching.