Walking back from class the other day I looked down and saw this hummingbird on the sidewalk. Seeing this bird dead on the sidewalk sparked an interesting conversation between my friend Alex, a fellow bird enthusiast, and I. Hummingbirds are interesting birds. They have one of the highest metabolisms out of all animal and have to be constantly eating in order not to die. Hummingbirds eat so much yet they are always only hours away from death if they do not eat. They can often die out of exhaustion, when they are not in their hibernation state called torpor. Alex and I wondered if this bird died because of a lack of food or if it rammed into the windows of Hugel. Hummingbirds are extremely intelligent birds therefore the food option seemed most likely.

This got me thinking of the habitability of our campus for hummingbirds or animals in general. We have a lot of green on campus, our trees and lawns, yet I feel that there needs to be more flowers and gardens. At home the National Wildlife Federation recognized us as a “Backyard Habitat” for transforming our yard into a habitat for butterflies, bees, birds, and insects. The steps are not hard nor tedious and are clearly laid out on the Federations website:  nwf.org.

I wonder if there was any way we could start an initiative to make our campus more habitable for animals, especially the pollinating birds and insects.