The Story of Wee Will
I wasn’t surprised to see the movement of a hummingbird amongst my zinnias the first time I spotted Wee Will. I was watering, and delighted to see this small little jewel choose one flower after another, oblivious to my presence.
His persistence, and the fact he wasn’t flying off, helped my decision to grab my camera in the dimming light. In viewing him through the lens, I finally realized that he wasn’t hovering over the flowers to gather nectar, but rather standing a bit awkwardly on the petals and thrusting his entire bill into the flower for the pollen. I also noticed that as a male hummingbird approached to try to chase him away, he raised his bill for food thinking Mom was coming in with a meal. It dawned on me Wee Will may have come out of the nest a day or two before he was really ready to fledge.
I grabbed my camera and photographed him as he moved from flower to flower, sometimes landing, sometimes hovering as he fed. His stomach now had a large yellow patch from leaning into the pollen laden crown of the zinnias.
I watched as Wee Will practiced hovering while feeding on some Cardinal Sage in the flower bed. When the effort was too exhausting, he'd grab ahold and feed, even if he was upside down.
As I continued to watch his movement through the flowers, I noticed that Mom, with another young hummer in tow, was keeping vigil on his moves. She was fending off a territorial male that would occasionally swoop in on Wee Will.
As Wee Will gathered confidence, he was making short flights back and forth from the flowers to a ornamental piece nearby where he would perch for extended periods of time. Each flight appeared to be more stable and his trips to the flowers seem to involve more hovering and less standing. It also became apparent that he was starting to act defensively when the male would descend on him.
As the day wore on and I was distracted by other things awaiting my attention, I forgot about Wee Will and assumed, as before, that he would be off to see the world. The ensuing days proved me wrong. During my walks through the garden, I encounter Wee Will, now fully in command of flight and the knowledge of when to hover and when to land.
He is the only hummingbird in the garden that allows me to move in close and watch as he feeds from the flowers, interrupted only by the fast action of another hummer letting him know he has crossed over into another’s territory. He has clamied his own space on a Redwood twig, small, like him
Those moments are timeless and sweet and I smile to myself every time I see him hesitate, then momentarily land on the petal of a brightly colored zinnia.
