Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: I found another hummingbird nest! Part 2, 1 by sunnyg

sunnyg wrote:
Kaper, Shelley, Shelia, and Fifi - Thanks so much for the well wishes, the lovely pic, and the suggestions! :-) My little parrotlet is on antibiotics and saline spray, and is full of sass this afternoon, which I take as a good sign. It just breaks my heart to see him sick, and the thought of losing him right now is unimaginable. I have been up since 4 am stressing over this, but he seems better this afternoon. He is mad at me for the two trips to the avian vet, the hospital cage, and the antibiotics. He is a tiny little thing (29 grams), but he sure does express his displeasure well! I figure this must be a good sign.

Sheila, thanks for the suggestions on the egret. It was so surreal to look out my window and find the egret, as my "pond" is an above-ground patio water feature that is only 300 gallons, so the egret was pretty much the same size as the pond! After he made several additional visitations, a friend helped me move some spare window screening over the pond as a temporary measure. I have several hiding spots in the pond, and the fish are doing such a good job of hiding that I don't know who/how many are left. Here is a link to a pic of the pond (the one in front) and my little fish buddies as well, so you can see how odd it was to discover my hungry visitor: http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/i/53789/

I finally made it over to the nest next door again this afternoon. I went last Tuesday because their landscaping crew comes then, and I have been afraid they will kill the babies when they trim the hedge. The crew said they weren’t going to trim the hedge that day, but I had to call their boss to hold them off for additional time. Since I don’t live there it put me in a bit of an awkward position. I finally made it over there again today….and the babies have hatched!!! Below is a pic of the little cuties. I didn’t want to stay longer, so mom could come back and take care of her little ones. I did manage to find one of the neighbors and get him to call the landscaping company to tell them not to trim the hedge tomorrow. He also said he didn’t care if I was over there taking pictures (this is not the same guy I’ve written about previously). So…the plan is that I will be out there in the morning making sure they don’t kill those babies, since when I showed the crew the nest last week they were not impressed at all.