Page 19 - PGA Community News - June '21

June 2021 June 2021 PGA C.A.N.!, Page 19

Book Review from page 18

Now, she shifts Since the shimmering beauty of many hummingbirds
her focus from the is already legendary, I offer the following brief excerpt
condor – the bird as just one small taste of how much more about these
with the largest mini-marvels of the skies awaits you in these pages:
wingspan in North “Alone among birds, they can hover, fly backward,
America – to one even fly upside down. For such small birds their speed is
which, among its astonishing ... a male Allen’s hummingbird, for instance,
approximately can dive out of the sky reaching sixty-one miles per hour,
240 species in the plunging from fifty feet at a rate of more than sixty feet
Western hemisphere, per second – and pulling out of his plunge, he experiences
has a total body size more than nine times the force of gravity. Adjusted for
that can measure just body length, the Allen’s is the fastest bird in the world.
over two inches! But Diving at 385 body lengths per second, this hummer
in so many ways the beats the peregrine falcon’s dives at 200 body lengths per
hummingbird is a second – and even bests the space shuttle as it screams
miracle of nature – a fragile, delicate creation consisting down through the atmosphere at 207 body lengths per a blur to human eyes, more than sixty times a second.
of a big heart, nine internal air pockets, hollow bones, and second. For centuries, people deemed hummingbird flight pure
legs so slender they have been described as “thread-like.” “Hummingbirds’ wings beat at a rate that makes them magic. Until the invention of the stroboscope, scientists
could not understand how hummingbirds hover. With a
flash duration of one hundred thousandth of a second, the
LET US HELP YOU been too fast for other cameras to capture.”
stroboscope finally revealed the motion of wings that had

Try for a moment to imagine a wing beat of 60 times
moves from flower to flower all day long, hovering over
Ship Your Valuable Packages & Furniture per second – over and over again, as the hummingbird
each one as it drinks the nectar with its long beak. The
energy required is enormous, which is why hummingbirds
Book Review on page 19 have large hearts, and why they must feed every 20
• CLOTHING • SCULPTURES • CUSTOM PACKING AND CRATING minutes in order to survive.
And think about this: There are tiny hummingbirds
• DISHES • ARTWORK • ESTATES PACKING AND that migrate from Mexico to Alaska, and that cross the
• ANTIQUES • COMPUTERS SHIPPING entire 500-mile span above the Gulf of Mexico in a single
• FURNISHINGS • FURNITURE SHIPPING • BOXES AND PACKING SUPPLIES flight! Unable to feed at any point across the Gulf, they
are near starvation by the end of their flight and must find
sustenance immediately.
WE PACK AND FREE interested in these unique birds, when she met a dedicated
Author Sy Montgomery describes how she first became
SHIP WITH TLC PICK UP AT YOUR woman, Brenda Sherburn La Belle, who is associated with
LOCATION a California wildlife hospital, WildCare, that has rescued
infant and orphaned hummingbirds and raised them until
they can be released into the wild. In The Hummingbirds’
Gift, Sy takes us, step by step – complete with color photos
– through the rescue and survival of Maya and Zuni, two
orphaned hummers, from their naked, featherless first
days – a size almost as small as a dime – and what it took
to keep them alive, to the day they entered the skies.
It is a heartwarming, beautiful story, as only Sy – who
was there to witness this mini-miracle – could describe
it for us. One that has motivated my wife, Linda, and me
to hang in our home garden three hummingbird feeders
(each with places for five birds to feed at a time), and to
Dishes, Glasses, Furniture have now added several flowering “hummingbird” plants
from the list that Sy has thoughtfully included in the book
Copies, Fax Service, Notary, US Mail, Stamps as being those that attract these wonderful flying jewels.

We look forward to feeding, and seeing, them. You
should look forward to reading this book as soon as
possible. It is a perfect joy.

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