It all started when the keeper came home from the office. She had stopped off at the store to get all of her Easter dinner shopping completed prior to the start of the Triduum. She let us out and Cecil bolted out the door and within minutes came right back in and dumped something on the dining room rug. The keeper thought it was a leaf, but no, Cecil had caught an adolescent hummingbird whose wings weren't strong enough to keep him aloft for more than a few seconds. The keeper swiftly snatched the trembling little mass of iridescent feathers to warm it up and see if was alive. It tried to fly out of her hand.
So then she got an eye dropper and some of the sugar water she keeps in the fridge for the hummingbird feeders and gave him some nectar. His little beak sucked it up. She called the Wild Birds store in Lake Forest Park who told her to take him back outside, put him on a low branch on a shrub so his mother could find him. She did that, and he stayed put for awhile, and then she found him flopping on the ground with his little beak stuck in the dirt like a dart. So she put him on another branch. This went on for a while and she needed to get to the cathedral for the beginning of Triduum. So, she put a shoebox out by the bush with warm socks and paper in it, tipped up the cover, and waved him goodbye.
When she returned from the cathedral, it was rainy, and she was ready to bring him inside. But she took flashlight to the box, and he was gone. Our version of the story is that his mother came for him, and carried him safely to the nest. We cannot imagine the alternative telling.
His colors were so brilliant and the iridescent diamond feathers on his throat flashed red and orange like a little light or those lights on kids' sneakers. We wish him well. he is a fighter.
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