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| Stripe-tailed hummingbird by Dirk van der Made |
This
is a tale about a family of hummingbirds here on Vancouver Island.
Now
these hummingbirds gather to feed on the Red-Flowering Current bush. There are
many of these bushes to feed on and they are large too – as tall as 7 feet and
just as wide.
In
the spring this bush produces thousands of tiny flowers, and the hummingbirds
feed on nectar deep inside each flower with their skinny long tongues.
Inside
each flower are stamens and on the stamens there is a fine dusty powder
called pollen. As the birds feed on the nectar the pollen falls on their brow
and is deposited on the other flowers they visit.
This
fertilizes the flowers and eventually they become berries. Berries are food for
larger birds and mammals. Inside the berries are seeds which pass through the
stomach of these creatures and fall somewhere on the earth where the
rain, wind, and fallen leaves fertilize the seeds as they lay dormant until the
next spring.
The
seed, in time, becomes a seedling and the seedling grows into another
Red-Flowered Current bush, producing more food for the hummingbirds.
Now
the hummingbird family in this story didn’t know all this. They believed the
current bush was sacred, and that they had a duty to feed from the flowers of
all the current bushes in their territory.
The
trouble came when there were so many hummingbirds coming for the flowers they
had to line up and wait their turn. As they waited their wings would be
flapping away at 80 times per second, which is 4,800 times a minute. You
can imagine how exhausting that would be, and how grumpy they would get if some
other bird came and pushed in. Although they were family it was hard not
to fight in times such as these.
Then
one day they noticed a stranger, a hummingbird that looked a little different.
This bird would fly right by and not get in line. They wondered where he was
going. He looked well fed, not starving at all. With each day they
became more and more curious. Why was this stranger not anxious or
grumpy? Why did he look so content?
One
day they decided they would call him over and ask him. “Hey Stranger” they
chirped “how come you never eat at the current bush yet you look so well fed?”
“Because
there are other flowers to feed from – and the current bush is so busy I would have
to line up”.
“Other
flowers? Other flowers! Besides the current bush? That’s not right!”
“We
have a solemn duty to get our nectar from the current bush. It was good enough
for our fathers and good enough for our mothers, and it’s good enough for us.”
replied one of the birds.
“But
why is it your duty to only feed at the current bush?” asked Stranger.
“I
don’t know why” answered Ms. Elder “Something inside tells me it’s the right
thing to do”.
“How
do you know if other flowers are good for you?” asked Mr. Elder. “What if they
are poisonous?”
“Look”
said Stranger “I will show you where the other flowers are that you can feed
from. Follow me.”
So a
small delegation of elders followed the stranger. He took them to a field where
different flowers grew in different shapes and colours – pink, purple, orange,
red – and they looked stunning. There he pointed out the ones he found most
tasty.
Not
all were blooming at the same time – hummingbirds find nectar in Asters,
Blue-Eyed Mary’s, Kinnikinnick, Nodding Onion, Red Columbine and Trumpet
Honeysuckle, throughout the summer and fall they live on the island.
“They
look pretty but I don’t know if I want to stick my tongue in them” confessed
Mr. Elder.
So
the Stranger flew to each of those plants that had blooms and drank from them,
then flew back to where the elders were perching.
“Look”
he boasted “I am still alive, I am well, I am fed.”
So
Mr. Elder went to the flowers that Stranger had visited and tried the
nectar. “Hmm” he remarked “they have different flavours, possibly an
acquired taste … but yes – they are good.” Then all the other members of the
delegation tried the flowers, and thanked Stranger for helping them.
Upon
returning to their family they concluded they were entering a new age where
there was choice – yes the elders were right to feed at the current bush – to
be faithful to the ones who had always fed them, and so was Stranger right to
find new flowers, new tastes, new vistas, to feed from.
The
age of the epicurean, le gastronome, the gourmet had arrived and hummingbirds
would no longer have to line up to feed on the current bush all the time. Of
course they still fed there, but now they had more choice.
They
thanked the stranger, invited him to join the family, where he was no longer a
stranger. They named him Socrates.
