Let Hummingbirds Restore Your Faith in Human Goodness

If you or anyone you know needs proof that the entire human race isn’t beyond redemption, may I suggest a screening of Sally Aitken’s documentary Every Little Thing.

The film follows Los Angeles author and educator Terry Masear, who rescues injured hummingbirds. She initially came to the work by accident, after her cat brought in an infant bird. The fragility of the tiny creature took her down a fascinating path. “I’m without children,” she says in the film. “I have hummingbirds.”

Today, Masear leads Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue, which she has operated since 2005. A former instructor of English as a second language at the University of California, Los Angeles, Masear now spends her days researching, writing about and rescuing hummingbirds.

Like most extraordinary stuff, the magic is in the details. In this case, the tiniest of details: some of Masear’s patients are smaller than her pinky finger.

With its warm climate, Los Angeles residents are happy to have hummingbirds buzzing about. Most don’t realize that human life and the stuff that comes with it — houses, windows, gardens, domestic cats — pose serious threats to the tiny creatures’ lives.

When people call Masear, it’s often because they’ve stumbled across an injured bird or an abandoned nest and haven’t a clue on how best to help. Most often, the bird has been injured from a window strike or it has become trapped indoors. Bumping into skylights can result in injuries.

The documentary is measured and calm throughout, taking inspiration from the woman at the centre of the story. The warp and weft of Masear’s life, told through archival images and flashbacks, unfolds alongside her current experience. One could not exist without the other.

As a young girl, Masear suffered horrific abuse. As she explains to the camera, she was extremely angry with her mother for a long time but understands that her parent was contending with her own demons. The reality of facing one’s own pain and finding a way to help others informs the beating heart of the film.

After suffering through a hardscrabble childhood and adolescence, Masear moved from southern Wisconsin to Los Angeles, where she met her partner Frank. As she explains, he was one of the most competent and capable humans she’d ever encountered.

In the more than 33 years that they were together, Masear explains, their roles shifted when Frank was diagnosed with dementia. Masear, now Frank’s caregiver, is clear about the demands of caring for the sick and the dying. Whether human or hummingbird, it is an act of fundamental importance.

Rehabilitating damaged birds is a many-tiered process. The most seriously injured must be fed, bathed and coaxed back into flying with gentleness and patience. Baby hummingbirds who have lost their mother must be cared for around the clock.

Masear explains that when they’re tiny, vulnerable and utterly dependent on their caregiver, they love you. But as they grow older and turn into surly teenagers, they start to hate you.

As birds mature, they’re released into a large outdoor enclosure where they learn how to fend for themselves. This means learning how to fight for food and territory, as well as attract a mate. In this stage, the blunt laws of the natural world have little room for human niceties — life quickly becomes about survival at all costs.

Unlike most birds, hummingbirds cannot walk. They’re either perching on branches or in flight, so if they suffer any injuries to their wings, they can’t survive. It’s a reality that Masear admits she doesn’t always share with would-be rescuers, who want to hear only hopeful news.

Scenes of Masear burying the dead, their small bodies folded tenderly into the earth alongside flowers from her garden, are handled with care and delicacy. It’s another reminder that mortality is here, waiting in the wings for all of us.

One might think this would make people more compassionate and understanding of each other, although the opposite often appears to be the case.

Most of the birds who find their way into the Masear’s care are brought to her by ordinary people trying to do the right thing. One bird is found after falling into a cactus, with spines jutting from her back.

Humans also do ludicrous stuff to birds, as the example of an injured hummer that Masear names Sugar makes clear.

The injured bird, covered in dried sugar and obviously manhandled by children, arrived at Masear’s facility with her wings shredded.

Heartbreak waits at every turn

What’s clear in watching Masear’s interactions with her small patients, dubbed Cactus, Wasabi or Jimmy, is that heartbreak waits at every turn. Some birds that look promising when they first arrive don’t make it, while others whose injuries are far more serious manage a full recovery.

Masear is careful not to bond with birds that don’t have a good chance of survival. The repeated loss is simply too painful to bear, she says. After burying the birds who don’t make it in her back garden, she explains, it takes little more than a couple of days before their bodies entirely disappear. The lightness of their bones coupled with their small size makes for a quick dissolution.

The combination of fragility and resilience is only part of what makes hummingbirds so fascinating. In addition to flying thousands of miles in their annual migrations, they can spot a flower up to a mile away.

Mother birds decorate the front of their nests with paint chips from nearby houses. Spiderwebs and human hair are also commonly used to make nests, as one startled woman realizes when she brings in a nest with two infant birds and discovers that the nest is wound with long blond hairs, identical to those atop her head.

In addition to their bejewelled beauty, hummingbirds can fly backwards, forwards and upside down.

One of the most joyful sequences in the film occurs when the healthy birds are finally released back into the wild. Watching them shoot a hundred feet into the air in apparent exultation is impossible to resist.

After screening the film, I wondered if the wildfires that recently ravaged Los Angeles impacted Masear’s work.

Thankfully, the woman carries on, fielding thousands of calls during the height of the breeding and nesting season in early spring when the wee birds are at their most active and vulnerable.

Every Little Thing offers something more than a story about a woman who dedicated herself to helping the tiniest of creatures. It’s about the duty of care that we owe all living things, big or small.

In the Jewish faith, the concept of tikkun olam encapsulates the idea that we have a sacred duty as humans to do what we can to make the world a better place.

The impulse to care for these tiny birds is an indicator that most people have in their hearts a degree of empathy and the need to do good.

Now, more than ever before, that solemn imperative is critical. Not only for other humans but for all the inhabitants of the planet.

‘Every Little Thing’ is screening at VIFF until Thursday.