Hummingbird Stories
This is a short and real story...
Diana and Iskánder, Cuba, 2009
Since my husband was a child he had caught birds flying, wild birds, any bird, with his own bare hands. He has some sort of a special connection with birds, and animals in general. The day we first met, he told me that he knew he was going to catch birds for me, just to catch them, because he releases them inmediately. And so he did few days later. Several times.
Through all his life, on his dreams, he had repeatedly caught a hummingbird on its fly. He had felt his own heart accelerating in the millisecond his hand reaches the hummingbird and on his dream, in that moment, he had always said: "I finally did it". When he wakes up he is always sad because 'it was a only dream', but he kept saying that he knew this dream was going to be a fact. All his closed friends and myself always believed him, we all knew that if he said it, it was going to be true because he had always dreamed about things that actually happen later.
One morning I was woken up by my husband, and surprise! he had a hummingbird on his hands. He had caught it in front of my youngest brother, the hummingbird entered the living room and went straigth at him. His dream had actually come true for the first time... We went outside and he released the beautiful hummingbird who stayed on his hand for a minute or so before flying out, and after we all 3 gently passed our hands over it.
Finally, last May 29th, 2009, after a rainstorm, my husband was walking back home and a hummingbird suddenly passed by his side flying in some strange and slow way that got his attention, so he followed him thru a pine tree grove and saw him landed on the ground, realizing as he approached it, that it was a baby hummingbird. So he took him and brought him home so we could feed him and try to protect him somehow, thinking that he may not wanted to receive our "offers" because here in Cuba, these little birds are known for their non-domestic nature and people say that if someone touches them, they may die... Then, my husband arrived and whistled at me to go to our friend Yanina's house to show the hummingbird to the children of the neighborhood, because lots of kids are always playing around that house. There, together with our friend Pablo Antonio, who is a fan of the birds (specially of the pigeons), we talked about whether it was better to let him go or to give him protection for that night (it was getting dark). We decided to return our house with Pablo to give the little hummingbird some honey to try and see if he eats it. We gave him the honey, he eat it, and then we mixed it with a portion of water thinking on the flower's nectar. We fed him that first night using an absorbent stick so he could enter his beak the same way he should do on flowers. My husband feeds him on his hand -as you can see in the video we sent in the previous email- and the hummingbird doesn't go away.
About ten days later, we read on the internet that it was better to give them 1 portion of sugar with 4 of water, so we changed the "recipe".
Three days ago "the little one" made his first flight from one point to another one right in front of our eyes! He made a whole procedure to get to the goal he had chosen, a white cable. He tried to get to the cable making little "flying-jumps", going from one object to another, aproaching his aim step by step but in the final step he didn't reach it. So, what do you think he made? He started all over again, we watched him made a great effort without giving up, step by step once more until he made it, he made his first well-aimed flight and we watched it! We got so excited that we cheered and applauded, it was really exciting. But more exciting and incredible is to see how the hummingbird flies toward my husband's hands and stays there so calmed that he falls asleep being in his hand. It's so tender...
So far, it had been 13th days with the hummingbird living with us, and so far, he hasn't tried to leave. We think he's not ready to go on his own yet, but I assure you that he teaches us many things about himself every single day and impresses us all the time with his inteligence and his unlimited communication capability with us, it's really amazing! He is really amazing!
He let my husband do anything to him, to open his wings, to stroke his little head and body with one of his fingers, to put him in any place, to move him around the whole house, to play with him using his hands, anything... and this beautiful hummingbird had never -and I mean never, believe me- he had never frighten away, not ever!! It's unbelievable, at least for me. And when my husband is going to place him out of his hand, he "fights" not to leave "that hand".
He is loose in this house but always under our strict surveillance, we never let him alone because he being so little may get hurt in the slightest distraction and in this house live my parents, my youngest brother, my husband and me.
And a final remark: we live in the middle of the city, in a neighborhood called Miramar, in an absolutely urban area of Havana City, Cuba.
Our names: Diana and Iskánder -my husband-, and the name we use for the hummingbird is secret, we only use it to call him directly...
We here at the World of Hummingbirds hope you like the Hummingbird Stories and hope that you would like to contribute your hummingbird stories.
