Hummingbird

For the second year, we have a hummingbird nesting. She built her tiny nest on the wooden top panel of a windchime. Her selection of location didn't seem logical to me until J. pointed out that she chose something that moves with the wind - and since it is very windy here a lot of the time, she chose well. The windchime is just slightly under our front porch awning, so she's protected from rain. When it's windy, she'll get a 'ride' on the chime, but the nest seems pretty sturdy and doesn't look like it will blow off or anything. It's pretty 'fixed' onto the wooden platform.

Last year, she laid two eggs and they hatched. For reasons we don't understand, she abandoned the nest and the hatchlings died. We are hopeful this year that she'll raise them until they can fly on their own and to that end, are doing are very best to ignore her. When we leave through the front door, we barely glance up and we NEVER stop and look. Yesterday, we left to run errands and I noticed she wasn't sitting - I paniced, but J. pointed to her in our garden, eating from flowers.

They are such amazing creatures and one of my mom's favorites. The pictures I have from her (no, siblings, I have not forgotten them - there are hundreds of slides and converting them to disc has been more problematic than I ever imagined. If we can't figure out how to make it work with the latest of several scanners we've purchased for this project, then we're just going to bite the bullet and pay to have them done for us...I digress, sorry)...so anyway, my mom's slides have lots of up close pictures of hummingbirds. For her painting, I think.

They are so pretty and so incredibly small. Her nest is the size of a Nyquil cup. I've been researching - they will hatch in 14 days and will be ready to leave the nest about 24-30 days after that. It isn't unusual for a mother to build a new nest and lay another set of eggs while still caring for her first babies. Maybe that's what she did last year only she forgot to come back.

I hope they make it. Our garden is full of salvia, nasturtiums, snapdragons, butterfly bushes, etc...all in full bloom and ready to feed how ever many babies she can have this breeding season. I'll keep you posted.