Fastest Things on Wings

by Terry Masear

  I liked everything about Iris. The morning she finally shot out the aviary door with her third cohort and original cage mate, who had stayed on with her, marked the first time I shed tears over a hummingbird from an emotion other than grief. But in her uncommon sensitivity, Iris seemed to glean that even rehabbers occasionally need emotional rescue, and the day after her release I came out to the aviary to find her perched in the bougainvillea above the redwood fence on the patio. Thrilled to see her, I greeted Iris warmly and she responded by buzzing around the sugar feeders before dancing off over the house. Iris came back to the same spot every morning until early September, at which point, being a black-chinned, the forces of nature beckoned her to Mexico for the winter. I never saw Iris again after her departure, but a young male named Blacktop who went through rehab later that summer would convince me of my rescued black-chinneds’ abilities to succeed in fulfilling their long-distance destinies.

  As the goddess of the rainbow in Homer’s The Iliad, Iris flies on the wind in a flash of speed and light. Linking the sky and earth, she facilitates communication between mortals and the divine. Brought to me as a young fledgling in the summer of 2007, Iris could not have been given a more appropriate name. Her very existence forced me to discard false assumptions I had held throughout my life about the nature of birds and their possibilities. After my enlightening summer with Brad, Iris, the terrified broad-tailed, and the frantic nesting mother, I came to recognize that hummingbirds’ complex and varied nuances would always outrun my imagination.

  Over the years, a dozen rescues have upended all of my preconceptions about the psychological and emotional capacities of hummingbirds. And like them, Pepper would reveal deeper secrets about the hearts and minds of these remarkable creatures than I ever could have imagined.

  The dazzling iridescent crown and gorget on this mature male Anna’s hold a magnetic attraction for females during the breeding season and give us a sense of how hummingbirds appear to one another.

  Brian E. Small

  Nestlings like these twin Anna’s on a wind chime, brought to rehab after their mother was killed by an outdoor ceiling fan, spend six to eight weeks in rehab before being released into the wild.

  Terry Masear

  This young female Anna’s shows how hummingbirds’ unique capacity to invert the leading edge of their wings during flight generates lift on the upstroke.

  Sara Michele

  A female Allen’s fledgling, brought to rescue after being carried into the house by the family cat, explores local succulent blossoms during her stay in rehab.

  Sara Michele

  This close-up of an adult male Allen’s reveals how the gorget shifts from gold to a brilliant tangerine depending on the angle of the sunlight in relation to the viewer.

  Rocky Stickel

  A male rufous nestling dropped off in rehab after being slightly injured during a heavy rainstorm.

  Sara Michele

  The same rufous, six weeks later, perched in the aviary awaiting release into the wild.

  Sara Michele

  An adult male black-chinned sports a velvety black gorget and purple neck band. A migratory species, the black-chinned is recognized among rehabbers for its exceptional intelligence.

  Brian E. Small

  Male and female black-chinned fledglings get acquainted while they practice perching during their first day in the starter cage.

  Terry Masear

  Costa’s nestlings saved from an ant invasion by a finder who consulted Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue. Some hummingbird species prefer to nest on manmade structures, like this light pole, which offer protection from predatory birds.

  Steve Diggins

  This adult male Costa’s sports a stunning violet crown and gorget. Costa’s adapt easily to the presence of humans and are quick to take advantage of fountains and sugar feeders put out for them by hummingbird lovers in the desert.

  Brian E. Small

  The adult male broad-tailed has a brilliant rose-red gorget. Although typically found in western mountains, broadtailed hummingbirds have begun appearing in Los Angeles rehab facilities in recent years.

  Brian E. Small

  A calliope with the characteristic burgundy striping on the adult male’s gorget. At three inches long, the calliope is the smallest breeding bird in the United States.

  Brian E. Small

  Allen’s twins whose nest was destroyed by a Santa Ana windstorm and repaired by a caller after consulting with Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue.

  Bella Hummingbird

  See more photos of hummingbirds who have been rehabilitated and released at losangeleshummingbirdrescue.org.

  CHAPTER 18

  Hurt So Bad

  BY MID-MAY, despite engaging in the regularly scheduled flight-therapy sessions I created for Brad a year earlier, Pepper hops from the twig in my hand to her perch but still cannot fly. Like Brad, Pepper dance-steps enthusiastically on her perch when she sees me approaching with the twig. And she is proving to be a tireless rehab candidate, spinning her good wing and hopping to the perch over and over until I have to take a break. Because of Pepper’s superior stamina, I exercise her at least four times a day. I can see the iron resolve in her eyes as she struggles to flap her right wing fast enough to fly to the perch. And although I have noticed only incremental progress in the wing’s rotation over the past two weeks, Pepper’s indomitable spirit seems to promise success.

  Between exercise sessions, Pepper sits on her low perch and sucks down formula. Her voracious appetite has made her positively rotund compared to the slender physique she entered rehab with. As I am raising and lowering her on the twig one morning I begin to wonder if her chubby body might inhibit her flight recovery. Then again, I laughingly remind myself, hummingbirds can burn off half their weight in a few days under challenging circumstances, and Pepper’s expanding waistline is the least of my worries.

  While Pepper’s recovery seems like a long run, Gabriel’s is starting to feel like a marathon. After six weeks in rehab, Gabriel continues to rest on his low perch without trying to fly or do much of anything. He just sits bolt upright all day, watching me tend to the rescues whose ranks are mushrooming around him. At times Gabriel marches from side to side on his perch, the only movement he can manage. I have never kept an injured adult as long as Gabriel, and doubts are starting to creep in. But he remains healthy and strong. He just can’t fly. Judging from his unusually straight, rigid posture, I suspect Gabriel suffered a serious back injury as a result of his collision with the Beverly Hills limousine. Recalling my own experience with a back attack, I know exactly how he feels.

  A dozen years earlier, I sustained a back injury that took nearly a year to heal. It happened several months after I had earned a black belt from the grandmaster of shotokan karate, a sixty-five-year-old Japanese ninth-dan black belt with a serious smile and the classroom affect of a war-hardened drill sergeant. I had been studying under Sensei Nishiyama for many seasons before the mishap, advancing from white to black belt during several years of rigorous training.

  A student-soldier in World War II Japan, Sensei was strictly old-school, and his training sessions proved fast-paced, strenuous, macho, and rough. He embodied the traditional “get in there and take your punishment, never lick your wounds in public, always be prepared to fight or die” approach to martial arts. I had stumbled on Sensei’s hardcore workouts while driving aimlessly around the city a week after dropping out of law school, and through them I finally discovered the true meaning of discipline. Sensei’s intense and combative classes often meant getting large swaths of skin bruised and abraded and having every aching muscle begging for relief as screams of “More speed! Strong spirit!” and a litany of indecipherable Japanese commands—which I intuitively translated as “Work harder, you lazy slobs!”—echoed in my ears. At the end of each training session, two hours of physical and psychological abuse, an international contingent of drained and nearly immobilized black belts drenched in s
weat would scurry into a lineup, kneel, bow, breathlessly gasp, “Thank you, Sensei,” and then head to the locker room to collapse on a hard wooden bench.

  Sensei had subjected me to a sufficiently heavy dose of this friendly torture during the six months leading up to my promotion to shodan, or first-level black belt, that I was in prime fighting condition. At the same time, however, my lower back was already causing me considerable pain from nightly drills that included hundreds of repetitious punches and kicks executed while racing up and down the dojo floor at top speed. Standing in the classroom at UCLA for five hours a day before submitting to Sensei’s tough love every night did not help ease the pain.

  Only a handful of courageous women had dared venture into Sensei’s testosterone-driven school of hard-hitters who excelled at this particular form of socially acceptable aggression. As one of the thinnest, lightest, and frequently most terrified members of the dojo, I often found myself on the receiving end of punches and kicks calculated to incapacitate an opponent with one blow. Still, Sensei praised my unusual foot speed, which I displayed each time I broke rank to flee the iron grip of another human time bomb. The advanced black belts at the dojo loved me because I moved quickly and could be thrown easily. Five days a week for six years, the boys and I had been sparring together on equal ground, with me skidding and rolling across the hardwood floor while they provided the momentum to perform these elaborate maneuvers.

  On that fateful afternoon in which my back finally succumbed to the pressure, I had gotten paired with a highly primed fifth-dan black belt who had just won the national title and was punching his way to international fame. I had been sparring with the newly crowned champion since the day I began training. That particular afternoon, while I was playing the role of the attacker and he was practicing defense training, I punched him in the mouth and bloodied his lip. It was a freak accident. I couldn’t have done it if I had tried. Not only did he have four inches and fifty pounds on me, but his skills were so advanced and his timing so sharp, I had never gotten close enough to graze him. And because shotokan black belts are trained to inflict serious damage on their opponents with a single attack, practitioners avoid contact at all costs. But when hyperconditioned and overzealous athletes spend years practicing techniques intended to destroy another human being as swiftly as possible, accidents are bound to happen. So, despite efforts to curb serious injuries, everyone absorbs a painful blow occasionally.

  In the case of my encounter with the budding fight champion of the world, it happened so fast I didn’t even know I had done it until I saw him wipe a trickle of blood off his chin with the back of his hand and suck in his bottom lip. Shocked and contrite, I immediately stepped back and apologized. When roles are reversed, a man’s heartfelt apology to a woman he has accidentally punched in the face is always a welcome relief. But when a woman apologizes to a man for bloodying his lip, I would soon learn, it only adds insult to injury. After all, he was the national champion headed for international renown, and no chick was going to smack him in the mouth and get away with it. And then I made my greatest mistake of all. I tried to appease him by going soft on the next punch, foolishly believing he would accept my pullback as a further concession. He did sasoi, inviting me to attack, and I obliged with a telegraphed and conciliatory punch. Only when he executed a break balance that flipped me backward over his knee and flat onto the hardwood floor with such resounding force that twenty black belts froze in midpunch and gaped in our direction did I realize my error. After a brief moment of room-spinning confusion, I bounced back to my feet, but already I could tell something wasn’t right. The only thing I could feel in my left leg was a hot, tingling sensation. I had to look down to see if my left foot was still attached, because I couldn’t feel it at all.

  Within seconds, Sensei, who had witnessed the whole exchange, stopped the class, strolled over with a commanding presence, and proceeded to take my vindictive opponent apart. Accusing him of unfairly brutalizing a lower-ranked and smaller competitor, Sensei delivered a verbal finishing blow deadlier than the most masterful karate technique. In a rare display of emotion, Sensei mocked my attacker for giving in to his desire for revenge and insisted that, rather than being angry with me, he should be mad at himself for letting a shodan (and a girl, no less, though Sensei didn’t say this directly) punch him in the first place. The chastened champ obediently shrank into a posture of humble respect and chagrin. But it was all too late for me. A strange tension had begun tightening its grip around my spine like a vise, making it increasingly difficult to remain upright. I bowed out and limped gingerly to the locker room as everyone looked on in horror. Because whenever you hear that someone has suffered a broken bone, smashed nose, pulverized spine, or tooth extraction in an advanced traditional karate class, you never ask for whom the bell tolls. It’s only a matter of time.

  After the numb drive home, during which I operated the brake, accelerator, and clutch on my five-speed Datsun almost entirely with my right foot, I collapsed onto the bed. And with this surrender, I entered a world unlike any I had ever known before: the endless arctic night of lumbar-vertebral-disc injury, wherein I would learn the true meaning of physical suffering in its uncut version. Despite a long night of trying, I could find no position on the bed that allowed me to sleep or breathe without excruciating pain. Sitting up was torture; lying down was worse. By the next morning, I was so incapacitated that I could crawl only short distances, from the bed to the refrigerator and back, and was incapable of reaching down far enough to put on my socks. Ice packs and a heating pad became my closest companions.

  Since this crisis occurred near the end of the two-week break between UCLA’s spring and summer sessions, I had no choice but to take that summer off from teaching. Because I could do nothing else, I read armfuls of books Frank carted home from the Beverly Hills library for me. Three months and a five-pound bag of assorted painkillers later, I gradually rose up from the ashes to spit in the eye of mortality, though not before the whole episode had reduced me to a physical and emotional two-year-old. And for months after I regained bipedal locomotion, the most insignificant twist or bend could still render me incapable of lifting a newspaper off the front porch.

  But as Lao Tzu happily points out, One gains by losing. And when I finally crept back to the dojo several months later, my repentant assailant treated me with the utmost care and respect for the rest of our acquaintance, which I accepted as a small victory. And in the end I felt I owed him a debt of gratitude, since, during my summer of pain, I began writing my first book, which I finished a few years later and which is still being used in English classes at UCLA today.

  Recalling my spinal collapse as I watch Gabriel step lightly back and forth on his perch that hazy morning in mid-May, I feel his pain. My wounded warrior moves carefully along the wire from side to side when I approach him. But he remains bolt upright just as I had when I first learned to walk again. People assume that back pain makes the sufferer walk twisted and bent like a ninety-year-old. But a serious lumbar injury causes its victim to stand, walk, and sit as if a steel rod is extending down the spine, with virtually no range of motion.

  “I know, Gabriel,” I empathize as he shuffles along the plastic-coated perch with his tiny feet in a feeble effort to get some exercise. “I’ve been there.”

  Throughout his first month in rehab, Gabriel had maintained a dull and impassive look in his eyes as he sat on his low perch staring into nothingness. Concerned about his psychological health, I began placing a large flight cage containing an unusually active pair of rufous twins adjacent to him every day. The striking pair of teenagers, rescued by Ricki Lake after their mother perished in a windstorm, had arrived as dinofuzz two weeks before Gabriel came in. Both chicks, a female and a male, sport dark-rust feathers on their tails and flanks and already fly faster than most birds upon release. Since Gabriel began watching the two perpetual-motion machines jet back and forth between perches as they tussle in midair and splash exuberantly on
river rocks in their tub, his expression has shifted from one of defeat and resignation to interest in the youthful activity carrying on around him. And this sudden dawning of hope has translated into light physical activity, making me cautiously optimistic about his recovery.

  Every time I look at Gabriel, I marvel at how he got here. I still can’t believe he is the nestling I rescued from that punishing rainstorm four years earlier. His mere presence tugs at a raft of thoughts and emotions I cannot bear to address. Every time I suspect that, in his return, he may represent some kind of messenger, as so many of my finders have imagined their hummingbirds embody, I have to remind myself not to read too much into it. Because when I regard him with the sober eye of a battle-scarred rehabber, the same old nagging doubts rush in to undermine my idealism: What if he doesn’t make it? How are you going to handle that? And how impossible would it be to try to reconcile any belief in his special significance with such a dismal outcome?

  While pondering these haunting questions in relation to Gabriel after going to bed late one night a few weeks earlier, I suddenly realized that I could not afford to focus on results with him. And this recognition led me to the most important lesson I would learn from rehabbing my boomerang bird. For the first time since I began rescuing hummingbirds, I was being forced to act from instinct rather than reason, an insight I would learn Lao Tzu supports in his assertion, The sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees. In my efforts to mend Gabriel, all I could do was ensure that I was using the proper means to achieve the desired end. Past that, the future was irrelevant. Embrace the uncertainty and move forward in good faith. Because, as I would one day come to understand, Gabriel was, is, and always would be beyond any rational explanation.