The hummingbird went into a kind of suspended animation, or “microhibernation,” each night due to the high number of calories it needed. “Torpor” was a word I’d never considered, as in “Torpor decreases their metabolism by 90%, their heart rate by 15 times, and their body temperature from over 100 degrees Fahrenheit to the ambient temperature.”

Torpor. They ran hot, so very hot, but then got so cold, like icy jewels there in the mountain. Clinging to a branch. Hidden by foliage. Dreaming of what? Did they dream of anything? They died, in a sense, every time, and the sun resurrected them. The nectar was life. Miraculous, and as I learned more and loved them more, I loved Silvina more and more. What I felt must have been what she felt, although how could I know?

The flowers, too. The flowers. The words connecting hummingbird to blossoms that I hadn’t known, like “nectarivorous.”

As is the lifestyle of hummers, S. griffin maintains a symbiosis with flowering plants, and particularly those in the family Solanaceae. In the Pacific Northwest, it is often associated with upland larkspur (Delphinium nuttallii), but also utilizes columbines, fireweed, and heaths. Each flower provides a sugary snack that satiates the small tank and the high burn of the hummingbirds, but only enough so that frequent visits, to many flowers, promotes pollination.

Larkspur! Columbine! Fireweed! The “small tank,” the “high burn.” All of this new information lit tiny fires inside. I took such delight, and delight didn’t come easy to me. But it did here.

They feasted on a particular kind of flower, “Solanaceae flowers in the Schizanthus genus (commonly called ‘Poor man’s orchid,’ or, in Spanish, ‘maripostia’) that occupy stream valleys at mid-elevations in the Andes.” These flowers contained powerful alkaloids hallucinogenic to humans and had affected so much of the birds’ evolution. Remarkable details. Their very head shape had adapted to “better carry pollen between immobile flowers, and, in turn, the flower cups have adapted to fit the hummingbird’s bill.”

The forked tongue of S. griffin efficiently laps up flower nectar. The coevolutionary pairing has also impacted the flowers, as their color, size, orientation, and nectar content are adaptations to better seduce birds to visit and then disperse the flower’s gametes to a fertile mate. Schizanthus flowers will release the entire anther (a male reproductive segment) onto the hummingbird’s head to promote successful pollen transfer for these ornithophilous plants.

The flowers never select or meet their mates, those partnerships are at the whim of the avian matchmaker, but the female S. griffin is most intentional about selecting her mate. Females have complete agency, and mating males must win their affection by being artists of many talents—a singing, dancing, and beauty competition all in one.

Singing, dancing, beauty competitions. How to process this ethereal touch, this intel so at odds with my job, my life?

Hadn’t the hummingbird been a kind of miracle?

Hadn’t it diminished us not to see this as a miracle and protect it?