The Hummingbirds of Mexico City

Ah, hummingbirds!

Tiny little creatures, nature's avium helicopter, they measure just a few inches in length.

Their neater-like beaks are a standout feature.

When they fly, they sound like bees buzzing.

They come in all sorts of rainbow shades, green, red, orange, purple, blue.

In fact, there are more than 350 species of them, and they really only live in one place.

We know that the hummingbirds are birds that just in the American continent, from Alaska to

Chile.

There is no hummingbird in Europe.

This is 76-year-old Katila Tooth.

In Mexico, where she lives, there are about 57 species of hummingbirds.

They live between three to five years, depending on the species of them.

Katila has made hummingbirds part of her life, and she fully embraces their creation myth.

My and legend has it that hummingbirds were created after all things on earth.

The gods noticed that something was missing to take people's wishes and thoughts from

one place to another, so they took a jade stone and threw it into the air.

Thus, the hummingbird was born.

Humans were amazed by how beautiful these birds were, so they hunt them for their feathers.

But when the gods saw what humans were doing, they declared death by punishment to anyone

who touched the hummingbird.

We don't touch, we don't put in a cage, a hummingbird.

And when Katila says you're not supposed to cage hummingbirds, she means it, because she

has her own hummingbird sanctuary inside her apartment, where these tiny little birds

are nursed until they're ready to fly out doors.

Back again.

I'm Anila Morales, and this is Alice Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange

incredible and wondrous places.

Today, we're hearing the story of how Katila turned her Mexico City apartment into a

hummingbird sanctuary, and why she loves doing this work.

More after this.

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When I spoke to Katia, she literally had hummingbirds flying over her, inside her bedroom.

So throughout this episode, you will be hearing chirping.

Katia has 85 hummingbirds in her apartment currently.

But that number can always change.

She frequently has visitors ringing her bell, asking her for help.

I hope they won't interrupt me because the whole day they are bringing hummingbirds to my place.

Katia has been an animal lover since she was a child.

She grew up in Lebanon and was a girl scout.

She learned about wildlife.

And as she grew up, those scouting skills manifested into her adulthood.

In the 1980s, she moved to Mexico City with her husband.

I came to Mexico and I started to put in my big garden because I had a big house, a grains for the birds to eat.

So all kinds of birds, you can see hundreds of them eating in the gardens, you know.

So I used to rescue the small birds from my garden.

I studied with a vet how to give the first aid to the birds in the winter and all of them.

And I rehabilitated so many of them besides rescuing dogs also and giving an adoption.

So it was my life, you know.

But eventually Katia gave up this garden.

In 2009, my husband passed away. He was older than me.

And I couldn't stand living in the house alone.

Katia then bought the apartment where she lives today.

And luckily for her, it was just across the street from where she used to live.

Hummingbirds weren't yet a huge part of her life.

But that was about to change.

In 2012, a friend called asking for a favor.

She knew Katia knew a thing or two about nursing birds.

And she wanted Katia to help her take care of a baby hummingbird she had found injured on the streets.

I said, please, keep him warm and bring him to my house.

In the meantime, I started to call some biologist, you know, to see what can I give him, to eat, how can I feed him.

The first day, you know, for them.

And she brought him to me.

And I called him Gucci because I found my lunch box and I put him there.

She named him Gucci after the brand of her glasses.

Gucci became the first hummingbird she ate in her apartment.

And Gucci also brought a new meaning into her life, especially during a very difficult time.

He lived with me nine months and it has a lot of meaning for me.

Because when I found him, I was detected with a terminal cancer.

They gave me two months to three months to live.

So the birds came and he always cheered me up.

Later on, I understood that nine months is equal life.

It was the baby to four in its nine months.

So he came to life to me in your life.

And now it has been sixteen years out of any helicons.

It's a blessing, yeah.

I understand Katia.

There is something spiritual about this that not everyone gets.

But when I spoke to her, I could see in her eyes the deep connection she shares with the hummingbirds.

They truly mean something to her that keeps her energized.

Oh my goodness. I love them. I love them.

I used to communicate with animals since I was a little girl.

When they are sick, I take them with my hand.

I give them a lot of energy and everything is okay.

It's unbelievable.

And Gucci was just the beginning.

As the years went by, she cared for eight, nine, ten hummingbirds at once.

Until her life took another turn, but this time for the better.

And then in 2023, a couple came to me with a baby hummingbird.

Two days of birth.

They found him in their garage and they knew about me and they brought him to me.

So they came in and they said, can we take picture video?

I said, all whatever you need.

I always tell them you don't have to ask.

Next day, a friend called me from Spain.

She says, I sent you an autograph to sign it for me because you are famous.

I said, what are you talking about?

I said, she is wrong, grating to me.

It's not to me. She is going to say, no, no, it's you.

You must see in Tik Tok, you have thousands of followers.

I said, Tik Tok, what is Tik Tok?

No, it's really like that.

And she says, you know somebody put a video about you, about your sanctuary

and it's your picture carrying a baby feeding him and all of that.

I said, send it to me please.

She sent it to me.

I said, I know the couple who put it.

And then my life changed.

Kati found some fame after this couple shared a video of her sanctuary through their social media.

News reports of her sanctuary flooded.

For a moment, she did get tired of all the interviews she was being asked to do.

But she continued them because she realized it was important for her to raise awareness.

She's now even invited to participate in conferences to educate people on hummingbirds.

Kati says, all of this is in fact a privilege.

Well, first of all, I have one advantage that I don't have any kids

who can claim you are spending our fortune in hummingbirds.

So I don't have to give an answer to anyone, okay?

So I'm free to do what I want to do.

Kati abides a special formula from Germany to feed the hummingbirds.

And it's not cheap.

But she doesn't care how much she pays.

As long as the birds are taking care of.

And she has situated her apartment to meet the needs of the sick and injured hummingbirds.

The apartment is so big.

So the two biggest bedroom, I met them, the sanctuary.

And one section is when I have the baby and the sick one.

And the other section is for preparing the one I'm going to free.

10 or 15 days before the freedom.

So I leave the window open.

You know, the temperature of outside.

I mean, I have the red also.

The protection.

They have plants.

They have a fountain of water.

They can bath.

And they have everything.

It's like living in the nature.

And I see and observe if they are okay.

If I see one who is sad, I take him back to the other home.

And the chirping of the hummingbirds does not bother her at all.

I am used to the noise.

They are not complaining because they have a lot of food.

Sometimes they...

They think there is no problem.

And at night, you know, at 7.30, all of them are completely sleeping.

Until the morning when I opened the curtains.

So five minutes later, they are enlightened.

So now, let's go back to the beginning.

There are more than 350 species of hummingbirds.

But over 190 species of hummingbirds are being threatened or close to being extinct.

And yes, this is a problem.

They are beneficial to the ecosystem of plants.

Each hummingbird is a polyensator of 10,000 plants.

Could you imagine this small creature?

So it's very important.

And like all animals, they got predators too.

My goodness, predators, let's start with predators who don't eat the hummingbird.

The biggest predator is the climate change.

It's a predator for me because it takes all the flowers out.

And you know the flower is the nectar in it, is the gasoline.

It's the, which it's needed to be able to fly.

And when they fly, they can catch their protein from the tree.

Small insects, small spiders, all of that.

Katya says that this year the city suffered from heavy rains causing many floods.

And many baby hummingbirds were found abandoned in nest.

The second one, very, very important, is something in Mexico City, a bird.

A black bird, they brought from the coast.

It's not from here, but it developed so quickly.

And now it's invading all the forest here.

And it eats all kinds of nests.

That bird is a species of crow, a magpie.

The third one, the fact that we have so many stray cats.

And the cats are very, very quick to be able to hunt a bird and a hummingbird who comes to a flowers

just to have some nectar and hope.

Katya doesn't do this work all alone.

She receives help from her housekeepers, who assist her with things such as feeding a baby hummingbird every 20 minutes

throughout the day to keep the bird alive.

That's a lot of work.

And if the housekeeper is not at home, she calls up a biologist to help her nurse it.

Katya has thought about making a foundation for the hummingbirds.

But these days, she finds it tricky to find someone trustworthy to help her form a non-profit.

While I'm leaving, you know, I'm asking God to give me more years and maybe one solution will come out.

Depending on how injured or sick a hummingbird is, Katya would keep a bird for months.

Remember, Gucci spent nine whole months with her.

When a bird is ready to fly out, she doesn't open the windows for liberation.

She sets them free in gardens where they're more than 1,500 plants.

She has a whole process of saying goodbye to the hummingbirds before they leave her nest.

You know, it takes a lot of time and emotion and care and all of that just to open the door and to say, OK, go free.

So, for the liberation, I don't know myself.

I cannot emotionally.

I am all my heart is beating very fast.

I said, no, no, no, no.

I prepare boxes, plastic, which is transparent.

Not to give them stress.

I put a feeder in the middle.

And I put a net on the top and I send it with friends, biologists who come to my place.

They take them, they free them and they send me feed them.

If you want to look at the incredible work Katya is doing and learn more about her sanctuary, check out her social media accounts.

Katya Latuvia Rida will leave a link in the show notes.

Our podcast is a co-production of Alice Obscura in Sirius XM podcast.

The production team for this episode includes Dylan Therese, Kelly McEvers, Doug Baldinger,

Camille Stanley, Johanna Mayer, Jerome Campbell, Amanda McGowan, Alexa Lim, Casey Holford, and Loose Fleming.

Our theme music is by Sam Tindall.

If you like our show, please give us a good review and rating wherever you get your podcast.

And make sure to follow us so you never miss an episode.

I'm Anola Morales, hasta luego.

Sirius XM Podcasts.

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