... Speaking of front yard, the other day I notice a hummingbird sitting at the top of our Japanese maple in the front and I figured it must have a nest nearby. We have a macrame dream catcher hanging in our carport and we've seen hummers in there helping themselves to the fuzzy bits of wool. Sure enough, our neighbour to the north sent us a short movie clip of a hummer nest in one of her climbing roses in her backyard, soooo, off I went on Monday for some pictures....and there was the wool!
What a wonderful story! Your photo is perfect - beautiful bird on her beautiful nest captures her artistry. I love how she centred the nest exactly above lichen growing on the branch. It's probably less than 2 inches in diameter! I hope you can capture a few more pictures when the eggs hatch.
The hummingbirds are now parents, eggs hatched three days ago... no doubt I'll have more images as the chicks grow....
This was taken on the 4th and I'd expect them to look quite different today, just haven't had time to go to the neighbours and look and take some more pictures. When I was taking this series of pictures the female bird -who is the primary caregiver- was off the nest for up to 15-20 minutes at a time loading up on insects and nectar before coming back for a quick feed of the chicks, a reheat of about 2-3 minutes and then off again, busy mum for sure!
Went back for a short shooting session this morning, they're sure growing! Pin feathers are showing and it won't be but a few days before they break open...
Open wide...... There's only just the one as of this morning, it's sibling flew the nest about 15 minutes before I got there. My guess is this one will fly either later today or tomorrow morning. Man, that's growing up fast!
A brief follow-up. Our neighbour sent us a couple of short movie clips taken about a week apart where one of the parents has come back to the nest, not quite enough detail to be definitive but it looks like the female, and it can be seen dabbing at the lining of the nest picking out the wool they used for lining and going off with it to their new nesting location. We haven't been able to figure out yet where that new location is however, hopefully we will...
