Life As A Hummingbird :: Creative Writing Essays

Life As A Hummingbird      Ã‚   I eased behind the huge mass of nesting material and took a firm hold of several strands, I then pulled back, quickly, to pull them free. The jarring concussion, which followed, took me by suprise. I tried to get my bearings as the ground rushed up to meet me and recovered about two feet from the ground. After that near miss I climbed back to the altitude I had been at and started searching for my tormentor. I realized that I had grabbed hold of a human's hair and that he had not been happy about it. He was rubbing his head and throwing immense volumes of noise at me. Hummingbirds make mistakes just like everyone else and more than most when trying to build and protect a nest.      Ã‚   I decided that I should look elsewhere and settled on a lovely little spider web. I dove toward it, feeling the thrum of my wings and hearing the whoosh of the wind flowing past. The web glowed gold in the morning sunlight and dew drops hanging from it shone like liquid fire. A gnat flew too close and I captured it with a snap of my long tongue. Snaring a long piece of the silk,   I immediately ascended,   looking for my tree. My mate was awaiting my return, and was soon rewarded as I pulled up to the carefully camouflaged nest. I passed the silken strand over to her and left to find some food.      Ã‚   The humans are very good to us and hang tremendous reservoirs of nectar from various limbs and rafters. The containers come in all shapes and colors but they all have red bases. I headed for one of these and saw one of my rival males. He instantly attacked, chirping his anger at my intrusion. I counterattacked and we began a dogfight. Up and down, we came, zooming into space and plummeting to the ground. Although he was a willing and able opponent, I eventually wore him down, and he then left the scene. I held a precise hover as my tongue formed a tube, then I began slurping the sweet nectar from the feeder. Although I only weigh about one half of an once, I consume twice that much food every day. I captured a dozen mosquitoes on my way back to the nest and then sat on the nest to keep the eggs warm while my mate went in search of food.      Ã‚   Sitting in the nest is a luscious feeling. The eggs are warm and the inside