Thank you for taking the time to share! Wonderful photos and videos, the fedglings are so cute!
I found another hummingbird nest part 3 - time to fly!
Sunny if you go out to the workers take a picture of the two in the nest. Tell them to watch for another nest!
That was a great experience sunnyg. Thanks
Sunny, go for it (taking the nest)...that is, if it's going to get taken down anyway. It would make a nice keepsake. ;-)
Isn't it against the law to take a birdnest or to posess one?
So glad you're enjoying the videos! I have one of the last nest that I'm uploading right now :-).
Wow, I'd never heard that before Willow...yikes! I guess that's something I definitely need to look into. Thanks for bringing this up. There is the nest right by my front door anyhow that I get to enjoy each time I walk by, so perhaps I should just leave well enough alone in that case. Sheila, if I do talk to the workers next Tues. I'll definitely ask them to be on the lookout for another nest.
Yep, looks like it's illegal. Thanks for the heads up, much appreciated! This whole nest watching thing has been quite the learning experience :-)
Edited to add links to the law:
Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918: http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/intrnltr/treatlaw.html#mbta
List of Migratory Birds: http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/intrnltr/mbta/mbtandx.html#h
This message was edited Apr 10, 2009 10:35 AM
Here is a video clip of the “tree nest.” http://s618.photobucket.com/albums/tt261/quique_2009/?action=view¤t=188.flv
I took this the day before the babies fledged. I was able to narrow down when they actually fledged, thanks to one of my neighbors. I knew they left sometime between 6 pm March 22nd, and 9 am March 23rd, but wasn’t sure when. My neighbor had been out of town, and came home at 3 am on March 23rd. He checked the nest when he got home and they had already left, so they must have fledged on the 22nd. I must admit I get the biggest kick out of the fact that he checked on them at 3 am! LOL
My mom is in town visiting, and yesterday I was going to show her the empty nest in the tree...but it mysteriously disappeared within the last couple of days. Whoa! We walked out there this morning, and as we were examining the nest, this hummer flew into the tree, hovered............and then landed on a NEW NEST!!! She had taken apart the old nest, and built a new nest several feet higher and over, on the same tree! Here is a pic of the old nest site. You can see some of the bottom strands of the nest remain (note the poop on the branch too LOL)
Here's the new nest. It's higher, and since the leaves are really coming out, I won't have a great view of this nest....but of course that won't stop me from taking a million photos anyhow ;-).
I climbed up into the ivy to get a bit closer...this is another angle showing how mama took apart the previous nest:
Just as I was about to climb down from taking this pics, mama came over and flew right up to me. She hovered literally a foot away from me for some time, and her neck markings did look similar to the previous "tree mom." Then, another hummer came over and chased her, and they went off zooming and zipping. I left at that point, so she could get back to her nest when she was ready. Here's the nest from below:
LOL the mama hummer is building higher to escape the peskerly lady with the annoying clicking thing ^_^ Undaunted, sunnyg scales the ivy and keeps clicking ^_^ That is so special sunnyg.
Nice photos, Sunny! You should build a website with all your pictures and stories. How cool would that be? heehee
LOL Dahlia...who me? ;-) If nothing else, she certainly doesn't appear to be afraid of me. However, if this were "Pooping Mama," I would definitely have been pooped on after taking those last shots, that's for sure.
Thanks Cissy! I do seem to have a hard drive brimming with hummer photos at this point, you're right! It would be fun to do something with them sometime. :-) I hope you aren't melting in this weird heat we're having. I'm still hoping we can take that trip to Annie's, once I figure out what in the heck to do with all my new little seedlings that seem to want homes right about now. (Are you sure you don't want any more impatiens babies? ;-))
I love that she knows how to recycle!
LOL yes, maybe I should post this on the Trash to Treasure Forum hehe ;-). Although it's more like treasure to treasure in my book, of course. It was 90 degrees today and supposed to get even hotter tomorrow, so I couldn't stand out there and get many pics. I do think she's already got eggs in there though, as she appeared to be hunched over and "turning" them while she was on the nest.
Nice find Sunny. Good observation Dahlia LOL!!
Sis_E..... I think more people see pics and read about it on DG than on a single website. I know none of us would look everyday to see what Sunny's hummer is doing, except here on DG! LOL!
Thanks Sheila! Whew, we cooked here yesterday. Cissy, I hope you didn't melt...I sure did by early evening (the house just keeps getting hotter as it gets later). Here is a pic of mom on the nest from yesterday morning (before it started to really heat up).
Another angle:
I went out to take another quick look at the nest in the early afternoon. It was 95 degrees and I have problems with heat, so I was only going to take a teeny tiny peek. However, I just couldn't help myself, and had to stay for a few minutes and snap pics.
Mom seemed to be up over the nest (shading it?), rather than actually sitting on the eggs. It was certainly warm enough out there for the eggs, without any additional body heat. Does anyone know what the hummers actually do in this instance, as I am only guessing.
She appeared rather drowsy in the heat...
Zzzzzzzz......
Blink, blink
She is adorable. I forget, are these Anna's?
Yes, I think she probably is an Anna's. I am pretty worthless when it comes to bird IDs, but KaperC and a few others helped with me the ID for the first mom, and this hummer looks pretty much the same. Does anyone else have any thoughts?
The babies are in Wind's great article on Lichen today http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2407/
...and here's the view from below this morning. LOL
I have a dumb question--Do the birds gather and put on all the spider webs or do the spiders do it?
Willow, here's a really neat site that describes the nest-building process: http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/nest.php
It sounds like a fascinating process!
That's a great link sunnyg.
Mom has been very intensely sitting on the eggs today. She moves her head back and forth a lot, and turns and fusses with the eggs. Here is a short vid clip of her moving her head: http://s618.photobucket.com/albums/tt261/quique_2009/?action=view¤t=079.flv
It's such an informative site, isn't it...I knew absolutely nothing about this whole nesting thing when this started, and naturally I have tons of questions. :-)
moving around and opening and closing her beak...
I think she is adjusting the eggs here:
I climbed up in the ivy, and this is what she was doing with her tail:
It's a good thing she's not the pooping mama, or I would have been in trouble here ;-)
She is so pretty in the sunshine...
Here's a slightly different angle:
Thanks for the link. That was a good lesson.
Do you think she is trying to cool herself off by spreading her tail and wing feathers as she's in the hot sun?
I'm really not sure what in the heck she was doing. LOL. When I took that photo, it was actually 10 degrees cooler than it had been the day before (it was a "brisk" 85 f), but maybe she was still trying to cool off?
The tree's leaves are growing in so rapidly, and it's making it challenging to take photos. I did catch mom flying in with a bit of white fluff, which she proceeded to add to the nest. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any photos besides this blurry one of her tucking it into place.
This message was edited Apr 25, 2009 10:29 AM
