My Favourite Place in Canada

Thetis Island

Sitting on the deck of a friends house I’d met during the circus of the Winter Olympics. We had settled comfortably in his deep porch chairs. Undercover, with the sun dipping dangerously close to the sea on our left, light was fading for the day. Night insects punching the clock for the start of their shift, the surface of water a highway of business. I was about to experience my first sight of a hummingbird. The sound came first. The deeply resonant hum that gave this bird its name, massaging the air around. A dart of a noise.  Catching sight of the hovering bird, a shade of yellow, a hint of iridescence on the shadowed body. The wings too fast for the visible eye but intuiting what they were there through the blur that remained. The insects on the low-tide were safe. The focus of the bird  locked on the syrup in the feeder hanging from the lintel in front of us. We, reminiscent of a family in the 50’s at the dawn of Television , hunkering down in front of the set for the new show as a second bird joined the hover. A game of confidence was being played. Understandably cautiousness on closer sight of their tinier than expected frame.  It is clear visually they would fare low on the food chain when encountering predators.  To compensate for size and strength they have carved out skills to excel in their corner of nature. Evolution being kind, the fast twitch muscle of the each wing adjusting in any direction to the minutest wind change. The bill sculpted to reach the sweetest nectar. A symbol of beauty and grace.  A level of consciousness transferred to us as watchers. Through experiencing their day to day, it lifted us observers out of our mundane. The difference between us and the family round the TV box, we experienced that moment first hand, smiling, immersed in the eternal present . The hummingbirds of Thetis Island. Creatures that can open the heart.