A tiny hummingbird has struck up a really unlikely friendship with the man who saved its life. At first sight Michael Cardenaz looks a really though guy – all muscles and tattoos. But despite his imposing stature, he’s nothing but a gentle giant.
Even though he’s a big fan of Harley-Davidsons and German shepherds, the former SWAT officer has a really unlikely friend – a hummingbird whose life he saved years ago. Back in 2016, Michael was enjoying the day on his porch in Grovetown, Georgia, when suddenly a little bird approached him. He knew something was wrong. “I was kind of shocked by it,” he told the MNN. “Finally, I’m thinking, ‘Random hummingbirds don’t just land in my hand. This must be one of my rescues.”
It turned out the little creature was badly injured. “Several of his feathers in his wings were broken off, and he couldn’t take flight,” Michael recalled for 26nbc.com. A kind soul, the man took the tiny hummingbird and took care of it. He fed the little one with sugar water and she later named it Buzz. “I had to wait until he molted, and regrew new wings. That was eight weeks. And he became a part of the family” he said.
After it made a full recovery, the little Buzz took it to the air once again and Michael thought he won’t see his little friend again, just as happened with other of his patients. “For some reason, animals are attracted to me. I’ve rescued squirrels, foxes, rabbits, deer — you name it,” he said. “Everybody calls me Doctor Doolittle.”
But this time it was only temporarily. The next spring Buzz came back to visit his hero. “And he’s been coming back for the last four years,” the man said. He then knew he made a lifetime friend it the little hummingbird he cared for. However, last spring Michael got a little bit scared as Buzz hasn’t showed on time as it used to. “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,” he said. “I stood on the front porch, put my hand out, and he landed on my hand.”
Michael and his kind heart proves once again, we should not judge a book by its cover. “I’m probably not the guy you would think nurses hummingbirds, but you see them helpless and you want to get them back on their feet,” the kind-hearted man added.