SEATTLE — A Seattle firefighter went above and beyond the call of duty to save one of nature’s tiniest birds.
According to Q13Fox, Andy Reilly was leaving the firehouse on a call Tuesday morning.
“I saw something on the floor that I first thought was a giant moth,” he wrote on Facebook. “On closer inspection it turned out to be a humming bird.”
When Reilly returned from the call, he made a nest using a clean rag. His attempts to feed it sugar and water weren’t very successful. Reilly said he decided to take the bird home where he fed it humming bird food while sitting in his driveway in his truck. Reilly said he read on the Internet if humming birds get tired and cold they almost ‘hibernate.’ So Reilly says he put the bird on the dash of his pickup truck in a spot that had been warmed by the sun.
“After about 10 minutes of being in the sun it started breathing normally and waking up,” he wrote. “I fed it some food from a dropper.”
After three feedings over 15 minutes the humming bird suddenly flew to the top of the Reilly’s truck door.
“I kept feeding it every few minutes and it would sleep in between,” wrote Reilly. “Finally it flew off into the apple tree, and then to parts unknown.”