{"id":49955,"title":"The Hummingbirds","description":"The making of a 'gentle reference', the Costa's Hummingbird (Calypte costae)","content":"

\"foww3uiztqnaphcjmlhilyrp156shw2xwpblb5fmjdngakvp.jpg.jpg?w=1140&project=birds-can-fly-107914&v=2\"My references have taken a bit of a back seat as I\u2019ve been planting pansies to mark the twentieth anniversary of The Pansy Project<\/u><\/a>. As summer begins and it becomes too hot for pansies, I\u2019ve been able to focus on birds once again. Here at last, my most recent drawing and \u2018gentle reference\u2019, the Costa\u2019s Hummingbird (Calypte costae<\/em>).<\/p>

This is not my first hummingbird, (insert \u201cThis ain\u2019t my first time at the rodeo\u201d- quote here, from Mommy Dearest\u2019 1981<\/em>). Since the start of this project I\u2019ve actually created five illustrations and four gentle references of hummingbirds. The fifth reference is in the planning and construction phase, see the fifth hummingbird here.<\/u><\/a><\/p>

\"ezexhwtgs0d8hmomblviqqbb7dow9ube5cdvi9foonqadayh.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"When all four of the references I\u2019ve done so far are seen together it\u2019s clear that there\u2019s been an evolution in the ambition of my references, still made with recycled products or eco-friendly found things - as much as possible, though I make it a rule to never use plastic when I\u2019m making my props, unless you count the almost unavoidable plastic used to hold make-up. And I especially never<\/em><\/strong> use real feathers.<\/p>

\"mf0hswwi79kgoid8uirtxvwb7yuab9uzv9lldkvx6nauprqk.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"I began in 2020 with Anna\u2019s Hummingbird by adding a just a little eye shadow with a matching jacket, the more recent Allen\u2019s Hummingbird (2023) I added a gorget made of orange wool wrapped around cardboard circles, all stitched together by hand to echo the shape of their key feature.<\/p>

\"vlsfsp5ypwbwm2uaagaovcvhpadccjvha2lsd3pvedc3cbkl.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"With the drama of the Costa\u2019s Hummingbird I wanted to take it that little bit further with my reference, creating a fashion look that worked as a portrait and a more dramatic \u2018in flight\u2019 pose.<\/p>

\"2rfhgpjwkdeyn38nbl4jnr6w10lcw367fxe5tdelebgc0uqk.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"The research behind the Allen\u2019s Hummingbird opened my eyes to the troubling nature of American birds and (to me) the surprisingly recent abuse that was involved in their journey to be categorised by Western science. This has only encouraged my continuing research into the decolonisation of ornithology in general, you can read much more about this mission on the \u2018Bird Names for Birds\u2019 <\/u><\/a>site which is helpful resource. You can read my research on the Allen\u2019s Hummingbird here.<\/u><\/a><\/p>

As I\u2019ve gathered my illustrations together I have been inspired to dig into these amazing little birds more generally. I\u2019ve been exploring my many bird books for inspiration, there are multiple illustrations that I love and am inspired by, the Sword-billed Hummingbird (below) featured in \u2018The Encyclopedia of Birds<\/em>\u2019 a magazine subscription that amassed into a 7 volume series. It was gifted to me during my childhood by my grandparents, a weekly joy that seemed to never end. Tragically, it was mistakenly discarded by a nameless family member. Months later my Aunty Sue discovered an exact copy of all 7 volumes in her attic and kindly gave them to me, a tiny little miracle of lost and found treasures.<\/p>

I poured over every page as a child. Amazing to me now that none of these illustrations were credited to the artists involved. I\u2019ve since discovered that the below is credited to John Gould and Henry Constantine Richter, an artist Gould worked with after his collaborator and wife Elizabeth Gould died in 1841.<\/p>

\"vcdeijyua5v2qucjessirgmp7aiqhpk5tdw9gfwdtxlrm0xg.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"The amazing Taking Flight by Lev Parikian<\/u><\/a> has a lovely chapter on the hummingbird. On page 192 he reveals a common ancestor of the hummingbird and swift: \u201cEocypselus rowei<\/em> (below) was the last-known common ancestor of hummingbirds and swifts. Although it was neither a hoverer nor a dasher, its descendants would come to master both, bossing the air in their own way.\u201d He goes on to reveal the tantalising evidence of European hummingbirds. The whole book is a total joy.\u00a0<\/p>

\"gmr761hkgotvh7mrmxlkuhju8llmt9lxryjilfhhobzb71ay.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"For a focus on the hummingbird The Glitter in the Garden by Jon Dunn<\/u><\/a> is rich and packed full of the kind of bird knowledge I adore. I\u2019m typically reading it out of order and exploring the book upside down and back to front, such is my dyslexic brain. I\u2019m still in the book and will no doubt find more to add as I continue this new era of hummingbird research.\u00a0<\/p>

I\u2019m sure many readers of this little blog will already be aware that the trade of the hummingbird for hats became known as \u2018murderous millinery<\/em>\u2019 and would inspire women in America and in Britain to create organisations that challenged the overwhelmingly large trade of these and other tropical birds, Jon Dunn explains:<\/p>

\u201cHummingbirds with their flashing, bejewelled gorgets and metallic hues of every colour of the rainbow, were perennially popular, and were seen as a relatively cheap fix for a tired hat. They were displayed in trays in London markets, priced from tuppence a bird, \u2018So cheap that even the ragged girl from the neighbouring slums could decorate her battered hat, like any fine lady, with some bright-winged bird of the tropics,\u2019 as one\u00a0 commentator in The Times <\/em>observed. An American monthly journal, Our Dumb Animals<\/em>, related in 1875 that, \u2018Lady Burdett Coutts certifies from personal knowledge that one Parisian milliner uses 40,000 hummingbirds every season.\u201d - The Glitter in the Green, page 175.<\/p>

George Grinnell founded the Audubon Society in 1886, though it was in 1895 that Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall founded the Massachusetts arm of the Audubon Society, these Boston socialites encouraged more women to join. In the UK in 1889, Etta Lemon and Emily Williamson founded the Society for the Protection of Birds it was these women\u2019s efforts that were instrumental in the ending of the feather trade and the protection of multiple species of birds.\u00a0<\/p>

\"aufuu8t5cpqcridwdgtenbrchsyufu53h6to0bwqn7mbvzxs.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"There\u2019s a striking irony in how many women have been forgotten throughout the history of ornithology. The Costa\u2019s Hummingbird (Calypte costae) was formally described in 1839 by French ornithologist Jules Bourcier, who named it in honour of Louis Marie Pantal\u00e9on Costa, a French nobleman and hummingbird enthusiast. This naming reflects a broader colonial tradition in which Western scientists erased Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK), replacing Indigenous names with Eurocentric honorifics.<\/p>

The original names and meanings attached to birds like the Costa\u2019s Hummingbird\u2014along with their specific associated stories\u2014have been lost forever. We may never know what this bird was once called, or what significance it held for the communities who knew it first, or even if the Western style of classification was used by the indigenous people, does classification equate to conquering?\u00a0<\/p>

Adding to this historical erasure, Emily Williamson (mentioned above), was the Manchester based co-founder of what would become the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), she was so overlooked that even her descendants were unaware of her foundational role: \u201c\u201cI have loved birds since I was a small child,\u2019 says Melissa, who studied zoology at university. \u2018It was an extraordinary coincidence for me to discover that I am the great, great niece of the woman that founded the RSPB\u2019 That her legacy could disappear so quietly underscores how narratives of nature, like those of history, are shaped by structures of gender, class and power.\u201d More on this story here.<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>

Though many species specific hummingbird stories are lost, there are more generally described hummingbirds in indigenous stories, as described in The Glitter in the Green<\/em>: \u201cAn Apache legend speaks of a warrior who killed tragically young, returned to the world in the form of a hummingbird in order to visit the woman he loved. His arrival heralded the end of winter and the return of clement weather.\u00a0<\/p>

Further south, they had a very different and more central role in mythology and religion of the Aztecs... The choice of a hummingbird god for the Aztecs supreme god of warfare makes perfect sense. They are fast, belligerent and utterly fearless in defence of what is theirs.... Aztecs believed dead warriors would be reincarnated as hummingbirds\u201d - Page 63.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\"jxmuvhixg9xjc7nh09yxkhx4yf291t91jyyz5tch7hpyqqun.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"This military association also links to the name of the distinctive throat plumage that many hummingbirds have, the \u2018gorget\u2019 originates from the suits of armour knights wore during battle to protect their throats and have a striking resemblance to the Allen\u2019s Hummingbird \u2018gorget\u2019 I made from wool.<\/p>

\"2rfhgpjwkdeyn38nbl4jnr6w10lcw367fxe5tdelebgc0uqk.jpg.jpg?w=1140&z=2.200000000000001&fx=0.7276501759799909&fy=0.25662975140899474&project=birds-can-fly-107914&v=2\"And so I embark on yet further research into the Hummingbirds, fast becoming amongst my favourites. The spectacular Costa\u2019s Hummingbird is perhaps the epitome of the exaggerated beauty of the male bird, of course there are many, though perhaps it\u2019s the hummingbird and it\u2019s tragic history with fashion that lends itself to my work.<\/p>

\"euqotaersfzlrjfrtqaq8sad1kag1tqoggc2k3hqcnubaabo.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"Portrait of JJ Audubon. John Syme - The White House Historical Association<\/p>

My \u2018bird drag\u2019 is an expression of queer identity, I hope it encourages a slightly different view of the birds around us. I am attempting to \u2018queer\u2019 ornithology and decolonise its archive. My slightly absurd and occasionally humorous self-portraits contrast starkly with those of the \u2018heroic\u2019 male ornithologists like Audubon, whose image with rifle in hand frames nature as a thing to conquer. Where Audubon is \u2018master\u2019 of the wilderness I hope to honour and protect the beauty of my subject. As ever my research continues.<\/p>

The Making Of\u2026<\/h3>

Unusually I planned this gentle reference with an illustration as I couldn\u2019t quite work out how I was going to hold the \u2018gorget\u2019 in my mouth, the drawing helped.<\/p>

\"tgojsdueg9xqefknbncmscjoih12ghglx7nvvng2z7ljcrqw.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"\"ftrwjdpt5lnn8jb6yzipcomkuwcsq8m0u69ongehs5rhypx3.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"The video below shares some of the process of the making of Costa\u2019s Hummingbird, I made this video before I discovered that Aztecs believed that the warriors would transform into hummingbirds. An interesting coincidence.<\/p>