The Flight of the Hummingbirds

I'm a bit more than half-way through John Yow's The Armchair Birder. It's been a while since I've read a book of essays and I'm thoroughly enjoying these. He provides witty commentary along with his observations, and the birds he covers in these pages are "ordinary" birds (if there is such a thing...I'm starting to wonder!) not exotic ones. He even writes on a few birds, like the crow, robin and starling, that we see here in our little city.

An example of Yow's writing style will also provide you with one of my favorite passages so far. It's in the essay on the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris):

"Maybe the male I'm watching right now, sitting impatiently on the hook from which I've removed the feeder to refill it once again, is in fact trying to fatten up so he can hit the highway and catch up with his pals. Or maybe, since we're having one of the hottest, driest summers on record, he and all the other hummers are just thirsty. In any case, they'll be gone soon enough, headed to Central America on a journey that will include a 500-mile, nonstop flight across the Gulf of Mexico. The energy they build up for the trip often doubles their body weight, yet even so, the feat seems pretty miraculous. Austin says that a physiologist once proved by metabolic tests in his laboratory that the ruby-throat couldn't possibly store enough fuel in its tiny frame for such a lengthy flight, but, he writes, 'the birds, never having read the report, continue to do so twice each year.'"

Heh. It's not possible, but they do it anyway. How I love this.

Can you imagine the thousands...nay, millions...of wingbeats that one hummingbird must beat for such a long flight? A nonstop flight of 500 miles! For that tiny (yet courageous and ferocious, according to other descriptions) brightly colored bird.

Where does the hummingbird get its hidden reserves of energy? Yow mentions later that hummers can eat a wide variety of insects in mid-air, catching them "flycatcher-style." He didn't connect that to his former musings, but I found myself speculating that perhaps the way they have been designed enables them to take in the extra nourishment they need as they go.

Well, however the mystery works, it strikes me that the hummingbird probably gets the energy he needs where we all get it: from God, the one who sustains the whole world. As I was praying yesterday, feeling in need of strength for the ongoing journey, I felt thankful for the hidden reserves of energy given us by the Holy Spirit. And I found myself picturing the flight of the hummingbirds, whose migration will for me forever be an icon of reliance on the unseen...and the cheeky joy of doing what looks impossible in the face of all the reports that seek to define what's possible.