VICTORIA -- When Damian isn’t making music during self-isolation, the professional drummer is trying his hand at amateur photography.
“I’ve been standing in my window like a lunatic trying to mount a camera in there,” Damian smiles. “I was duct-taping my phone to the window.”
He shows me pictures of some of his attempts at getting the perfect shot. One shows him peering out the window at his subject — a windcatcher with a small nest built on its bottom.
“My kid’s freaking out,” Damian says. “[She’s saying] there’s got to be birds in there!”
Damian finally found the right angle to get a photo showing a few eggs in the nest. But, the identity of who made them remained elusive.
“I used to say my spirit animal was a hummingbird,” Damian says, showing how he drums like they fly. “But my wife was like, ‘No. You’re more like a sloth.’”
Although self-isolating can certainly support sloth, Damian was determined to help his daughter see the hummingbird who laid the eggs. They tried everything from enticing it with different food, to reaching the camera to new heights. All the while, the pair experienced one of the unexpectedly positive symptoms of the pandemic.
“I get to see her [and my wife] every day!” Damian smiles. “Which is awesome.”
After more than 15 hours of trying, Damian finally found the perfect spot to capture the photo. He recorded a video of the hummingbird flying to the nest and spinning around in the windcatcher as she fed her babies.
“It was pretty cool,” Damian smiles.
Damian added a soundtrack to the video, a song he wrote about his daughter. It begins with the lyrics, “Twilight sparkles in your eyes. Daydreams fill our busy lives.”
Damian says the song is about enduring parenting’s most challenging moments and appreciating its most perfect ones.
“You’re just trying to savour every moment,” Damian adds. “They’re so awesome.”
And, it’s important to mark the moments before they pass.
The lyrics continue: “I would do anything to hold you right now. Say all the things I never knew how.”
It’s mesmerizing listening to the song while watching the birds slowly spin in the breeze. You can see it here.
And now that Damian’s family has achieved its goal of filming the hummingbird’s family, they plan to return to self-isolating in front of nature documentaries on the couch.
“More sloth! With a few moments of hummingbird,” Damian laughs. “But very few!”
