Anthropomorphizing Anna’s Hummingbirds

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim
Photo by Sujean Kim

I visited Seattle last week with my sisters and my younger nephew, Benjamin, who lives in Cincinnati. On one of our walks, Benjamin saw an Anna’s Hummingbird, and pointed it out to his mom as excitedly as a chill teenager might. We saw a few over the course of the week and always stopped to watch them flit about.

My friend, Aaron, lives in Michigan and is another hummingbird fan. When he and his family came to visit a few years ago, his enthusiasm made me realize that I take them a bit for granted, as we have them here year-round. We have at least two who live near our backyard. I’m watching one now, out my office window, darting between blossoms on our Meyer Lemon tree as the last remnants of the summer light fades away.

I try not to anthropomorphize animals too much, but it’s hard. Hummingbirds seem adorable, but they have a mean streak. Often, when I’m in the backyard, they will swoop nearby and hover, sometimes just a few feet away. I usually hear them before I see them, a steady stream of clicks and the telltale hum. I used to think they were just being curious or were coming by to say hello. I think it’s more likely that they’re being territorial and are making it clear to me that I’m not wanted.

Last Friday, I saw through my window that one of the hummingbirds had flown through a gap through my enclosed raised bed and was struggling to get out. I immediately went outside and opened the door so that it could escape.

It could be my imagination, but I feel like that hummingbird has made it a point to visit me every day since. This morning, I sat on my bench examining one of my unfinished projects, when the hummingbird flew a foot away from me and hovered. I looked at it and said hello. It looked at me calmly for several seconds, as if it were returning the greeting, silent except for the steady vibration of its wings.

I like to think that it’s decided that I’m its friend and is easing up on its territorial ways. It’s also possible that it’s still irritated that it got trapped in my cage and is making a point of letting me know.

It doesn’t matter. I think it’s wonderful. I feel very lucky.

Forsythia, the Stories Plants Tell, and the Bonds They Forge

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Overcoming nature blindness does a strange thing to you when you travel: You start to pay an inordinate amount of attention to the local plants, sometimes to the annoyance of the folks with whom you’re traveling. When I was in upstate New York last month, I couldn’t help but notice the forsythia.

They were everywhere. You couldn’t miss their abundant yellow blossoms amidst the mostly barren branches, as Spring was just starting to emerge there. I saw them by the Finger Lakes, off the sides of the roads, and in just about every garden I passed. Much to my partner’s chagrin, every time I saw one, I would point and exclaim, “Forsythia!”

It turns out that this was no accident. In the early 1950s, the Ithaca Garden Club embarked on a major campaign to plant forsythia all over the region. They planted over 10,000 of these beautiful shrubs, earning the city the nickname, “Forsythia City.”

Last week, I was in Southern California visiting my parents. My Dad asked me how my bonsai dabblings were going. I pulled up photos of some of my projects, including some cuttings I had taken from my parents a few years earlier. My Mom quietly listened to me talk, then asked, “Do you know what 개나리 (gaenari) are?”

I shook my head.

She started telling me about these shrubs that were harbingers of spring in Korea and how her father (who died when she was 11) used to plant them around their garden. As I listened to her stories, I looked them up on my phone, then laughed, “Oh my gosh. They’re forsythia!”

I told her about my adventures in upstate New York and pulled up photos from my trip to show her. Then I asked, “What made you think of them?”

She replied, “Listening to you talk reminded me of my Dad.” Then tears started welling up in her eyes.

Later, I searched for “forsythia” in my photo album to see if it would be smart enough to find my photos. It not only found several, it also pulled up a photo and video of a bouquet I had taken almost exactly nine years earlier with my parents at a coffee shop in Newport Beach.

My Mom had spotted the bouquet and asked me if I knew what they were. Her reaction to the flowers moved me enough that I asked her to let me record them on video. She even sang a Korean children’s song about them.

Apparently, I quickly forgot about this encounter and about forsythia in general. I don’t think I’ll forget this time.

Goal-Setting Bingo Cards

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Amanda Hickman pointed me to the practice of creating bingo cards for your goals.

Via u/sdbabygirl97 on Reddit

One habit I struggle to help folks build is to actually look at their goals once they set them. This is a clever and fun way to encourage that. I might experiment with this as an exercise at my Collaboration Gym. Draft your goals first using the Success Spectrum, then pick some mixture of Minimum and Target (and maybe even Epic) goals and put them on a bingo board.

Bald Eagles: “The Best Motherf***ing Bird There Is”

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

This past Saturday, my partner and I were in Point Richmond and spotted a bald eagle flying high overhead. The white head and tail feathers were unmistakable, and we stood there, staring in awe.

I saw my first bald eagle 15 years ago in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. I could not believe my eyes or ears. It is such an iconic bird, yet for the first three decades of my life, they were endangered. I was never sure I’d ever see one.

I can’t remember the first time I saw one here in Northern California, but they no longer surprise me. Heck, there was even a pair living in Piedmont last year, just a few miles from where I live. It still feels special, though.

The very next morning, two flew high overhead while we were doing our regular habitat restoration at Skyline Gardens. They were accompanied by a turkey vulture, a red-tailed hawk, and an irritated raven trying (and eventually succeeding) to chase the large raptors away. I couldn’t believe my luck as I stared up at them in wonder.

About ten years ago, I saw Corey Arnold give an amazing presentation at Pop-Up Magazine about how bald eagles were seen as pesky flying rats in Alaska because of how they picked through trash en masse. It muted my awe of bald eagles a little bit.

But not that much. This morning, I wondered what Matt Kracht’s The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, which my nephew had recently given me for my birthday, had to say about bald eagles. I wholeheartedly agreed with its assessment:

Is this bird flawed? Hell, yes — it’s a bird. But it stands for the promise of something good. Please, don’t even get me started, because this is the best motherfucking bird there is. Period.