The Thing About Hummingbirds.
The Thing About Hummingbirds
“The hummingbirds have found my black and blue salvia!!” Donna Wilder, Member Long Island Gardening Group
Donna Wilder posted this comment and exquisite photo last June to Long Island Gardening Group. I actually gasped when I saw the photo. It is so beautiful, and so Hummingbird!
When I founded thehummingbirdpost 6+ years ago, I was definitely searching for something. Interestingly enough, although at the time I didn’t know that hummingbirds were indigenous to Long Island, they kept coming to mind. To my knowledge I had never seen one here. However, subsequently I DID see hummingbirds… not frequently, but when certain blossoms were blooming. It was shocking, surprising, exhilarating! When Donna posted this photo, which truly captures EVERYTHING, I again felt extreme joy and excitement. We had recently moved to a new home and late summer/early fall a hummingbird, much like this one, began visiting our lantana. I think my comment about “what’s with the hummingbirds?” in the About section of the blog sums it up best. I have included it below.
It reminds me to think about the glory that abounds.
“I think it’s the hummingbird’s small size, strength and determination, its ability to go this way and that flapping its wings like 50 times a second, and its long slender beak that reaches deep into the most beautiful flower to sip the sweetest nectar. It struck me that this is us! This is exactly what we are trying to do as the best possible abstractions of ourselves. We too are just a tiny part of nature, and when we allow ourselves, we are also able move in many directions and find the most beautiful things. And, like the hummingbird, we are able to meet our challenges with a ferocity that defies all odds, while still making time to hover—in a good way—sipping the sweetness of life. So it seems that the hummingbird is the metaphor for this blog about life, and quite possibly reflects the best parts of each of us.”
And I say “Cheers to that!”
