"Yet I could not escape the feeling that these efforts were papering over the cracks that were appearing across the continents in which the hummingbirds were found. They were indeed, I realized now, the most beautiful canary in the coalmine."
The distribution of birds in zoos and aviaries is an uneven one. Some groups, especially those that are most closely related to our domestic birds with well-understood, easily satisfied husbandry, are very well represented. Waterfowl, for example, as well as pheasants. I've cared for several species of each, and have seen many of the remaining species in one collection or another. Other birds remain far more elusive, far more difficult to manage. Perhaps the birds I've thought of the most in this way have been the world's smallest birds, the hummingbirds.
The interest is hardly mine alone, either. For as long as people have seen hummingbirds, they've been fascinated by them - their speed, their perpetual motion, their tiny size. At times, they seem less like birds, than they do largish insects, or perhaps even very elaborate pieces of clockwork. The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds is Joe Dunn's account of traveling the length and breadth of North and South America in search of hummers. I would've expected the book to open by telling us how Dunn grew up watching hummingbirds in his garden, or found and nursed a wounded hummer as a kid, or some such story. Instead, I was surprised to learn that he was from the decidedly hummingbird-free UK. Given the difficulties in maintaining hummingbirds in zoos, his first exposure to the little birds would not have been live animals, but as pinned specimens in the cabinet of a natural history museum, like little feathered jewels.
Dunn makes no claim that he is going to show the readers all - or even a majority - of the world's 366 or so species of Trochilidae. Instead, he focuses his book on the superlatives, birds that stand out as exceptionally unique even in the midst of such a strange family. An obvious candidate, for example, is Cuba's bee hummingbird, the smallest of birds (though Dunn tells us that this diminutive title is contested). He also bookends his work with the northernmost and southernmost of hummingbirds; I'll have to admit, I'd never even considered that Alaska would be a place where one could conceivably find these little guys! He even takes us on a quest in "search" (through history, as well as geography) of a hummingbird which never even existed, a fabrication of an era when new species were being described left and right, not always with the most accuracy.
As always when I read books like Dunn's, I'm equally entertained by the peppering of historical and geographical information in with the zoology. One of the most interesting chapters takes the reader to desolate islands off the coast of Chile, home not only to hummingbirds, but, centuries ago, to a castaway whose story was the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe. A few diversions aside, however, Dunn keeps his focus on his pint-sized avian protagonists. And, as with every modern natural history book out there, in the background is the looming specter of endangerment brought about by human actions. There's loss of habitat, there are invasive species, and there is an unsustainable demand for the bodies of these little birds, as Dunn shows us as he tours a Latin American marketplace and sees hummingbirds for sale. Fortunately for the reader, there are also plenty of people that we meet who are determined to do their part to save the little birds, and their stories inspire hope for the future of hummers.
Hummingbirds are birds that have always frustrated me on some level. They are so tiny and so fast that whenever I see them, in the wild or (less frequently) in a zoo, I feel like I can barely register them as they zip by, sometimes hovering for a few seconds to offer me the quickest of views. Perhaps because of this, I was all the more appreciative of a chance to sit down with a good book about the family so I could appreciate them at a more leisurely, less hummingbird-like pace.
The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds at Amazon.com
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