Spencer Pratt Holds Snapchat Funeral For Deceased Pet Hummingbird, 'Lil Angel'

"How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?" asked Carson McCullers in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Former reality star Spencer Pratt faced that eternal question on Tuesday after waking at his Southern California home to find that his beloved hummingbird, "Lil Angel," had died.

Lil Angel's death was allegedly caused by the recent heat wave in Southern California, Us Weekly reports. "It's this damn heat," Pratt wailed in a Snapchat video on Tuesday, expressing guilt over having "slept in a little later" and not been awake to save Lil Angel.

Once the shock subsided, Pratt posted a moving tribute to Lil Angel, in which he burned sage and dug a hummingbird-sized grave to the strains of a music montage that included Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" and "Yesterday" by the Beatles. Mourners took to Twitter to express their sympathies for Lil Angel's passing, many of whom Pratt—who goes by "Pratt Daddy" on Twitter in a nod to the recent birth of his and Heidi Montag's son Gunner—retweeted.

Pratt's affinity for hummingbirds was documented in a New Yorker profile last June, in which he told writer Naomi Fry, "I think they’re just the cutest little freaking things in the world. Just how small they are, and how fast."

Reached via Twitter on Wednesday, Fry expressed her sympathies for Pratt's loss, telling LAist, "It's beautiful how much Spencer loves his hummingbirds."

The average life span of a hummingbird is about three to five years, according to the National Park Service; LAist reached out to Pratt for an estimate as to how old Lil Angel was at his time of death, but did not immediately hear back. Fans of the HBO series The Sopranos will note the parallel between Pratt's relationship with his backyard hummingbirds and Tony Soprano's special connection with the family of ducks who settled in his pool; two powerful men, humbled by love for their ephemeral avian visitors.