For the last four years, a former SWAT officer in Georgia has been visited by a little friend that he nursed back to health – a hummingbird named Buzz.
As WRDW News reports, Mike Cardenaz found an injured, flightless hummingbird on his property a few years ago.
“Several of his feathers in his wings were broken off and he couldn’t take flight,” Cardenaz said. “I had to wait until he molted, and regrew new wings. That was 8 weeks. And he became a part of the family.”
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Cardenaz, who affectionately named the bird Buzz, said he nursed the bird with some Pedialyte and sugar while providing a safe place for it to recuperate.
“He would fly around the yard and come back when he got exhausted because that was his comfort zone until he finally took off for the winter,” the man said.
For the most part, hummingbirds head south to Central America and Mexico for the winter months, before making their way back north to their breeding grounds, with some making the trek as early as February. Hummingbirds have a general life expectancy of three to five years.
As for Buzz, Cardenaz said the bird usually comes “home” at the start of April, but this year he was late.
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“I was kind of worried about him and I was on the front porch, sweeping off the front porch and I felt something zoom around my head,” Cardenaz said. “I stood on the front porch, put my hand out, and he landed on my hand.”
Cardenaz is confident it’s the same bird coming back every year.
“Random hummingbirds don’t land in your hand,” he said.