||| FROM KEN WOOD |||

On a grey day in early February, while standing quietly in my snowy garden, I was surprised to hear a hummingbird zoom overhead and followed the sound to find a fluffed-up female Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) perched on the tip of a branch of the crabapple tree. I admired the temerity of this tiny, intrepid bird and wondered/worried about how she was doing, foraging in the snow and where she would spend the freezing night ahead. She quietly acknowledged my esteem for a moment and abruptly dove/dropped into a power dive – right at my face! 
Trusting her, I boldly stood my ground and was thrilled and delighted when she halted, audaciously hovering six inches in front of my nose. Standing still as trees, I waited for her to decide what to do. To my astonishment, she hovered closer and closer and I felt the tiny tornado of her blurred, saber-like wings on my cheeks. I closed my eyes but did not move in the slightest as she came closer and closer, her wings fanning my beard and moustache and then I felt her put her beak up my left nostril and her tongue flicking! I did not move a muscle. It was… uniquely odd, intimate and thrilling all at the same time. Then she did the same with my right nostril! I felt her tiny taloned feet brushing my lips and she moved to my left ear, gently but deliberately probing with her beak and tongue, then around to my right ear!  By this point I was in an altered state and when she hummed up under my chin and nestled against my throat with a touch like the softest eiderdown, I was delighted but not surprised at all. And there, clinging to my coat collar, she stopped, just resting there.
Kate was a couple dozen yards away and I called as softly as I could for her to come see this little miracle nestled on my collar, but as she approached, the Anna zoomed away. Very excited/calm and still in an awed/altered state, I told Kate what had just happened, crazy as it sounded. I was kind of disappointed for her that she had not shared or seen this extraordinary interaction. I knew she believed my tale, but it’s still not the same as seeing something incredible with your own eyes.
But the brazen adventuress returned! Zooming back, hovering right in front of my face and putting her tongue up both sides of my nose again, both my ears again; Kate’s face was a picture of astonishment! Then she vanished, but Kate, holding very still, whispered, “She’s perched on top of your head.” For several long moments we all were just there. At my urging, Kate tried to slowly ease her phone out to take a photo but just as she got it out, the Anna whirred away.
Doubly amazed and quietly humming/buzzing/thrilling inside, I can’t remember feeling so audaciously lucky except for one other time in my life; at the Princeton UU church when I met Kate for the first time! 
Then the Anna returned AGAIN. This time to inspect Kate’s hands and wrists, poking up into the cuffs of her coat. When the bird approached/touched her face, Kate pulled back and covered her face with her hands. Undaunted by this rejection, the Lilliputian queen retained her dignity and hover/hummed around Kate’s hands for a moment, finally zooming off on her own terms toward the barn. Leaving me wondering, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!
 
Obviously I am still processing this experience, which feels more like a vision-in-waking-time or a shamanic journey than a simple winter afternoon in my garden! There are undoubtedly plausible ways to explain this behavior ornithologically and I know/accept that that is one aspect of the truth. But there is also another, larger truth that I am still seeking to understand; it felt like a blessing and an intimacy. Throughout I felt only delight and an audacious acceptance, even love… Quite frankly, it was wonder-full!
This seems to me to be an experience unusual enough to warrant considering in more depth from a variety of angles… I’ll let you know where/how it goes. I downloaded some extraordinary photos of Calypte anna and I am struck by their martial/regal air; those feather/scales like iridescent armor, that beak like a rapier,  those scimitar wings moving faster-than-sight. When I think of hummingbirds, my first thought is fearless…  I feel deeply honored; intimately touched and trusted by a bright, bold spirit.

Wild, right?!

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