“He flew and perched right next to me …”
Settling in for another day of work in her New England studio, artist Chloe Barcelou was startled to realize she wasn’t alone.
Glancing over, she saw a beautiful green hummingbird, barely the size of her palm, who appeared to be in trouble.
“I think he came to ask me for help,” Barcelou told The Dodo. “He flew and perched right next to me.”
Barcelou had spotted hummingbirds flitting around neighborhood gardens, but had never glimpsed one this close. She was amazed at how beautiful he was. But why was this little guy all by himself? And so close to a human? Barcelou knew right away that he must be in need.
“I felt surprised to see him in our workshop, but also a bit worried for him because I knew right away he was stuck,” Barcelou said. “I was also excited, in the back of my mind, to be having such a close-up encounter with a hummingbird. It looked like a little fairy!”
Barcelou and her partner quickly made a sugar-water mixture and, using a spoon, offered some to the bird. The hummingbird happily drank. After about two minutes, his eyes started to open. Barcelou could see the energy flowing back into his body.
You can watch Barcelou helping the bird here:
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Having drank all he needed, the bird eventually flew away. Barcelou was happy to see her tiny friend back in the sky where he belonged.
The next day, Barcelou saw the bird again, hovering contentedly outside her home, looking at Barcelou as if to thank her for helping him the day prior.
“That’s just my personal intuition, that it was the same bird with a message, because it looked the same,” Barcelou said. “It just seemed fitting that it would have come back and said thank you!”