VALLEY - Kay and Allen Campbell call the tiny feathered foundling he discovered clinging to the latticework on their front porch several weeks ago "the baby."
But their son, Byron, 14, says the hummingbird's proper name is "Bugger."
"I was spraying for ants when I found it," Campbell said. "A cat and I spotted it at the same time. It hadn't finished feathering."
The Campbells figure the ruby-throated hummingbird was trying to learn to fly when it got tangled in the latticework. Days after they took the miniscule creature into their home, Campbell found the nest. It had fallen from a series of gangly rosebushes extending along the house from the porch.
They figure the mother is the hummingbird they've been feeding during season for about three years from a feeder in their yard. The family lives on a wooded estate off Teoc Road in Carroll County.
Both Kay and Allen know what it's like to need help. Each has coped with their own serious medical conditions. These range from Allen's hard-fought battle with an acute form of leukemia to Kay's crippling bone and joint problems and heart trouble.
Caring for Bugger gives the Allens a deep sense of pleasure.
Bugger drinks homemade nectar from needleless syringes protruding into its temporary cage, which is a redesigned can which used to hold three pounds of Folger's coffee.
Finding the nest, Campbell arranged it inside the roomy coffee can. "It made the baby feel more at home," he said.
Campbell, a disabled law enforcement officer, credits his wife, who is a retired federal clerical worker, with designing Bugger's home. It has holes and slits in the plastic fitted top for the three feeding syringes containing blue, orange, and red nectar.
"It prefers the red," Mrs. Campbell said.
The living room is Bugger's exercise yard.
Family members reach into the coffee can and tenderly transfer the scrap of green feathers onto a finger, a hand.
Sometimes, Bugger takes flight, resting on window drape or the ceiling fan. The bird's human friends take care the fan isn't moving before opening Bugger's can.
Campbell held the bird on a finger, gingerly. "She's a really loving thing, for a wild creature," he commented.
The Campbells' daughter, Brandi Turner, says she's sure Bugger knows her father. "It'll watch him walk around when I have it out," she said. "It'll swivel its little neck around and tilt its head."
Adults birds come to the glass front door, Kay Campbell says, when the yard feeder is out of nectar. From six to eight of the migratory birds routinely feed there.
Practically, and legally, the Campbells aren't sure how long they can keep the hummingbird; it's illegal to keep hummers as pets.
His brother, Dennis, is making a cage for Bugger, so before the baby's ready to be assimilated into the world of hummingbirds, it will have more room.
"They're amazing," Campbell said of hummingbirds. "They're not supposed to be able to fly, but they do."
