The Eighth Week - Day 43: When Hummingbirds Attack

The Eighth Week – Day Forty-Three: When Hummingbirds Attack

7/25/11:

Throughout my lifetime, I’ve come into contact with more than a few deranged entities.

Yet, never once did I think that the delicate, gentle and shy hummingbird would be one such creature.

Recording sites with Yelena and Noah, the thundering rattle of beating wings and the fast approaching dark body of a bird had me yelling and ducking for cover.

Freak occurrence, you say? Not so.

The hummingbird, fired up for another few rounds, continued to dive-bomb me until I beat a hasty retreat behind Noah. The little critter was peeved about something, and I was bearing the brunt of his fury. Now, hummingbirds may be small birds, but they’ve got a whooper of a beak for their size. That, coupled with the eerie buzzing of their frantically flapping little wings, was more than enough to set me on edge—especially when the tiny thing was flying directly at my nose. I managed to escape unharmed and with a healthy appreciation for the menacing power of one of nature’s (seemingly) cuddly species.

After my close encounter had passed and work was done for the day, Yelena and I rocked out unabashedly to some twee pop songs on the drive to Dogtown Lake. We were both runners and by this point in the summer, a bit tired of all of our routes from the Williams Ranger District. Dogtown Lake, with its evergreens, rocky bits of shoreline, and trails, was just what the running doctor had ordered.

Later that night, I enforced some exercise on Noah too by hauling him to the top of one of Bill Williams Mountain’s foothills. A line of telephone poles, running from the ranger district into Williams, took this route up and over the crest of the hill. To keep the telephone lines accessible, a large swathe of forest had been cleared around the poles, providing a seemingly clear path to the top. We tromped up in the semi-dark of dusk, stumbling over downed branches and tripping through prickly bushes, cell phones held aloft for their flickering light.

At the peak of the bald hill, a lonely stump jutted into the air surrounded by long grasses and a few craggy boulders. From this spot, we could look up at the shadowed face of Bill Williams Mountain, down over the quiet ranger district, or off into the web of lights that made up Williams. Further out, we could see the black outline of mountain peaks over the muted roar of the highway.

Flopping down on a rock, we stayed perched up there for a bit, stars pulling themselves out of the sky. I tried (and failed miserably) to find Draco, the constellation Quentin and Joe had been laboriously teaching me to discern from the summer nights.

Looking out over the KNF, I found myself thinking about the forest as though it were mine, psychotic hummingbirds and all.

*Part of “God wrote two books” was penned after this mini-climb.

Photos: 1. Yelena and me in the KNF 2. Noah (photo credit: Neil) 3. Views from the Williams Ranger District