NEW PARENTS (from September 3rd)

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Some months ago, my friend, Hanne, who lives in Covid-safe Denmark, suggested that I watch the progress of a nest of ospreys, https://stream.webstream.dk/naturstyrelsen/, high in Gripskov, a forest north of Copenhagen. Cameras and microphones had been installed so that viewers all over the world could follow the birds as they fixed the nest, laid 3 eggs, took turns sitting on them, until 2 chicks emerged. One egg didn’t make it. We watched the chicks scream for food, the parents swooping in with dangling bits in their beaks to be shared, and then suddenly the chicks were big, stomping around the ample nest, tearing at the live food brought by the parents and testing their considerable wings. All this accompanied by the sounds of the wind in the trees, the bird screams, and the hoot of a distant train - a peaceful scene that made your face relax.


View from Oswaldo's study

Meanwhile, in Gávea, we were oblivious to a similar event beginning to unfold. Hummingbirds are known to be territorial, and one seemed to have taken possession of a tangled Dracaena tree next to the balcony outside our bedroom and in front of Oswaldo's study. Every time we went out to hang a damp towel, or wonder why Zaffy was barking in the garden below whilst staring at the tree, the little creature would burst out of the vegetation in an aggrieved and reproachful manner, hanging vertically mid-air, frantically beating his wings - ‘his’ because beija-flor (literally flower kisser), the Portuguese  word for hummingbird, is masculine. It took us a while to understand that he or she or two very similar looking birds had built a nest right in front of us. It looked like a gnarled protrusion in the fork between two branches and under and amongst several other, making it rain-proof most likely and almost impossible to see. When I tried to locate it amidst the spiky Dracaena leaves it seemed to shift before my eyes, like a striped fabric will do. Also, because of the alarmed bird(s) we tended to keep a respectful distance. 

The nest is in the dark center of the photo - almost impossible to see.


In our house Oswaldo will stop whatever he is doing to go save struggling bees and other bugs from drowning in the pool. He fishes them out with the long pool net and talks reassuringly to the drenched insect before depositing it on a leaf. Zaffy watches this without interfering, but leaves her ball right behind him, so that she is next. In the same manner we try not to rile the hummingbirds and mutter apologies if we must go near. As time went by we discovered two silhouetted dark heads with tiny beaks sticking out of the nest, and, we must have gained the parents’ trust, because when I tiptoe out, lean over the balcony fence, squinting to locate the nest once again to point the muted iPhone at it, there is no alarmed movement anymore. 

 

Just a month ago little Celina was born, the daughter of treasured and special friends. Her gestation was mostly done in quarantine and even now we can only follow her development in photos and videos. We watch, avid for news, the bliss of the new parents and also their sweet exhaustion in the middle of feedings and sleepless nights, remembering how it was for us more than 33 years ago

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 Celina rests with her dad. Courtesy of Pilar Strunck


And then I wonder: maybe the new hummingbird parents are just too tired and wrapped up in parenting to worry about us? 

Comments

  1. julinhazonhaSeptember 20, 2020 at 9:58 PM

    I loved this Siri, thanks so much. You are so much in the moment, which is how we all need to be now. xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SiriSeptember 21, 2020 at 1:12 PM

      Thank you, Julia. I really appreciate your comments.

      Delete

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