A delightfully empathetic film about a woman who tends to wounded hummingbirds up in the Hollywood Hills. The California Premiere was part of the 36th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF).
Terry Masear is an angel of a person who either finds, or takes in hummingbirds who are injured and nurses them back to health. Her phone rings with people wanting to drop birds off to her.
More often than not, her efforts reap rewards. Sometimes they fail, but she never gives up on the delicate little creatures. As the story points out, this joyful, gorgeously shot portrait teaches us as much about these fragile, amazing creatures as it does about the tenacity of the human heart.
Masear painstakingly feeds babies from little droppers who’ve been left behind by in most cases, a deceased mother. She does her utmost to try to get the ones with damaged wings to fly again. Her world revolves around a special relationship with hummingbirds and she knows a lot about them.
Perhaps she’s attempting to fix their broken spirits, as she herself once went through deep emotional distress. We find out that Masear suffered from childhood abuse and then later on, she looked after her husband of 30 years as he went through a long decline of Alzheimer’s disease. It wasn’t easy.
Overall, this is a beautiful story about nature’s little wonders.
Six fascinating, lesser-known traits about our little friends:
- Incredible Metabolism: Hummingbirds have the highest metabolism of any bird species. Their tiny bodies require enormous amounts of energy, and they can consume up to twice their body weight in nectar and insects daily.
- Napping Experts: To conserve energy, hummingbirds can enter a state of torpor, a mini-hibernation that allows them to significantly slow down their metabolism, sometimes by up to 95%. During this state, their heart rate drops drastically from over 1,000 beats per minute to as low as 50 beats per minute.
- Color Perception: Hummingbirds can see colors that are beyond human perception, including ultraviolet. This ability helps them spot nectar-rich flowers that stand out more vividly to their eyes than they do to ours. They can spot a flower a mile away.
- Adaptability: While they’re known for their small size and delicate appearance, hummingbirds are remarkably adaptable. Some species can thrive in various environments, from the tropics to the North American deserts and even high-altitude Andean peaks.
- Speed and Agility: These birds are speed demons, capable of flying at speeds exceeding 30 miles per hour. They also have the unique ability to fly backward and hover in midair, thanks to their ability to rotate their wings in a full circle.
- Longevity: Despite their high-energy lifestyle, some hummingbirds can live quite long lives for such small birds, with some species living up to nine years or more in the wild.
The film festival is over now. Today is Best of the Fest with information below:
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 
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