Humming Bird Nest

Today I was out in my front yard cleaning things up and was going to trim some bushes. As I put my trimmers up close to one of the bushes I saw something strange on the bush. Since I didn't have my glasses on , I thought that maybe it was some sort of strange insect cocoon. When I put my glasses on, here is what I found instead.














A tiny hummingbird nest with two little white eggs.

It had these tiny little eggs no bigger than my little fingernail. The nest was all woven with tiny furry feathers. I could have easily held the nest in the palm of my hand.

What did she use to hold all of the feathers in her nest. Some birds weave sticks for nests. Some use mud and their feathers to make nests, but this nest looks so soft and downy. I emailed Davids dad and asked him to research about hummingbirds. He sent me back a link and in this link it explained how they make their nests. Somehow the momma humming bird apparently finds spider nests and rubs them upon her chest. Then she flys to where she is making her nest and rubs her chest onto the nest and the spider web becomes the glue that sticks the feathers together and this is how she starts to form her nest.

I placed my left index finger right next to the nest (without touching it) so you could see the size of nest compared to my finger. I know that it is blurry, but you can still see the size and see how I could mistake it for a spider or bug type of coccoon or nest.




For those bird lovers, I never once touched the nest or anything of the like. I didn't want the mother to abandon her babies.





Blog update: This morning I peeked out my front door and the momma was sitting on her nest. She is so tiny and precious! I will try to get a better picture of her tonight because the sun was just rising and so the lighting wasn't very good but you can see her sitting here on her nest.

I am a bit worried though. This tiny limb can sway very easily with the wind. I would like to watch the progress as the eggs hatch and the baby birds grow feathers and fly away. I am worried that with a big wind the eggs will be flipped out of the nest and crash onto the sidewalk. I am tempted to put something soft there so that if they flip they will be safe and we can gently get them back in their nest, (without touching them of course). Any ideas?

UPDATE FRIDAY JUNE 5th

After brainstorming many different ideas, I still didn't know which would be the best. Do I tie some kind of a sheet up by the porch railings? If I did that and the eggs did fall out of the nest, would the wind whip the sheet and catapult them off of the sheet anyways?

What if I used some kind of a netting or webbing so the wind could pass through the material? Where did I have something like that? Could I just put my big queen sized air mattress out there? What if cockroaches and all kinds of wierd bugs infested my air mattress though? I really didn't want that. And then I thought about the wind issue. If I did put out the big air mattress would the wind just whip it away in a big gust and possibly hit the nest and destroy it? What to do, what to do?

With all my wondering and worrying which was taking up time, mother nature had a different idea and while I still hadn't figured out what to do the wind started blowing and I was worried that the eggs would be tossed out of their nest. I went into the garage and got 3 blankets and laid them down on the cement. I figured that even if one of the eggs did fall, because of their tiny size they would at least have a good chance of not breaking if there was something soft to break their fall. No these blankets aren't Better Homes and Gardens fashionable, but they have seen better homes and they have been outside in my garden many times when the frost was threatening to take my vegetables.

After placing these blankets on the ground I was thinking that all was well, I went and picked up David at work and did errands and all the while the wind blew.

Imagine my disappointment and sadness when I looked out this morning and discovered this on the blanket. An egg shell. We looked for other parts and only found one half of the egg shell.

"David I called, one of our baby birds is gone, the egg fell out of the nest in the storm" I couldn't believe that it had broken, it was so tiny, it couldn't have weighed hardly anything. ( Later on I placed a quarter by the shell so that you could see just how tiny it was in comparison.)
"Where is the rest of the shell, or for that matter, the egg yolk or something!" I asked? " Maybe a lizard or cat got the egg." David said,. I felt kind of sad for that tiny little bird. I had so wanted to take a photographic journey of these babies birth to fledglings and out of the nest to experience their new life, for myself, my children and most of all my grandchildren. Birth is such a sacred and awesome experience and it is so fun to share with little ones.

I decided to look into the nest to see if the other egg was there since we only saw evidence of one egg on the ground. I peeked inside and one egg was left and beside it was something dark.

I wondered if some large mouse had gotten to the nest and pushed the egg out or ate it and left its droppings. To my eyes it looked like 3 mouse droppings stuck together or bird droppings, or something dark and strange. We went back to picking up the egg shell and wondering at the delicateness of the shell. Not hard or crunchy but soft and pliable. I decide to take a second look into the nest...and lo and behold it was a wet brand new baby hummingbird no bigger than a watermelon seed. In the photo below this baby hummer is a couple of days old.
Wahoo!! We are hummingbird grandparents, or whatever you want to call it.. So there you have the start of the hummingbird family on our front porch. I will try to update different pictures etc. as they grow and the other one hatches.

UPDATE MONDAY JUNE 8,

This morning I wanted to see if the second egg had hatched. Yesterday, Sunday, it had not. I peeked outside this morning and momma was sitting on the nest. Usually when I peek out she flys away, but today she stayed. She looks so cute there sitting on her nest, that I thought I would attempt another photo with decent lighting, I left my door open and went to look for my camera. I stepped outside and she was still in her nest. "Snap" I took a picture with one of my lenses and decided that I wanted a different lens. Went inside and changed the lens and walked out again, she was still there, and I snapped another picture of her. She didn't move... So.. I went to get my big bertha lens. My telephoto lens. I step outside and she is still there. I got some really good close-ups of her. She doesn't move, doesn't fly away. just sits there so prim and proper. Why does she not move? Is the other egg hatching and she knows she needs to be there? Or... Does she realize that we won't hurt her or her babies and has given up on running away each time? I don't know. I am not a hummingbird whisperer, or is it hummerer? All I know is that it tickles me inside that I can get this close to such a beautiful delicate creature of our Fathers creation and she not fly away. That I can be so priviliedged to see the miracle of birth in so tiny of a creature as a baby hummingbird... I have watched other animals and their process of birth and each one leaves me in awe of the miracle of birth, but with a creature so diminuitive and delicate, it just touches my heart and makes me grateful that God cares for even the tiniest of creatures..

Pictures to be posted later.. I am painting right now..

UPDATE: Friday June 12. 2009

Yes! Momma was sitting on the nest in anticipation of the other baby to be born or I guess the proper term is hatch.

Below are some pictures of both of the babie humming birds. If you can see the yellow orange color in the nest, that is the newest ones beak opening up for momma to feed it. Their sizes are amazing. The older one who was born several days earlier is twice the size as the new born.

Today the older one looks the size of a large bumblebee and the younger one the size of a honey bee. So amazing.
I am going to try to get a video of the babies searching for food when I can. Hope it works and then I hope I can figure out how to post it on here. Wish me luck

I was able to get some videos on different days of our baby hummers. I hope you can see them and enjoy the process. I had fun trying to get them.





Well, its been a few days since last I posted. Today is June 25. Yesterday when I went out to see the baby humming birds, the older one (lets call it Speedy) because I don't know if it is a female or male. Was sitting on the branch in front of the nest. I phoned David and told him that one of our babies was walking. Here are some pictures of that momentous feat.

Then this morning my neighbor Diane phoned and David answered. She told him that she had seen "Speedy" take his first solo flight yesterday and land in the flower bush about 20 feet away and get stuck. She said that Speedy was crying for mama and mama bird was all upset.

Diane said that she went over to the flower bush and gently picked up Speedy and placed him back on the branch by his nest. I guess that is when I saw him. I thought he had walked onto the branch but apparently Diane had placed him there. What a neat thing to see the first solo flight of a baby hummer. Way to go Diane!!

It has been such a treat to watch these baby birds this month. I suppose I might get a week or so left if I am lucky to watch. Babies grow up and leave the nest... Sigh.. That is certainly my story.

On one of the videos below you will hear the baby hummers voices. It sounds somewhat like an airy whistle. I was so surprised when I heard it. I mean really, how many people get to hear the first words of a baby hummer. I have posted it here for you to enjoy.

Actually I tried to post it. It took about an hour to upload and when I told it to publish, it disappeared so I will try again. It takes a lot of time to upload these videos (darn).

After several hours of trying to post two of my precious videos, I realized that this blog will only accept 100 mgs of video at a time. One of them is just over 100 mgs, and the other is around 265 mgs. (I found that after trying to publish it for 6 hours!) I will try to do a utube video, which I haven't the faintest idea how to do... It is just so precious that I hate to have you miss it. But anyways.

On Friday, Speedy left the nest for good. I was kind of sad to see him go and not be able to see the momentous occasion. But Patience, (that is what I named the other humming bird) is still here. Patience has a few more days before taking off.

Today is Monday June 29th.

I started this blog on my hummingbirds about 27 days ago. Here are some more pictures of just Patience by herself missing her sibling and looking lonely.