Too stupid to die…

As in Patience the hummingbird’s chicks. Below are the first shots she’s permitted me to take and an update.

More happening in the garden, but the biggest news is,  I found out Tuesday: a) there are in fact two chicks, and b) I have two pics! Here’s the first.

In this picture, the two chicks are at the back of the nest, beaks pointed up waiting for mom to come back with food. As tiny as they are – the nest is just larger than a golf ball – they are huge compared to my first peek right after the first one hatched.

Here’s an update, some of it written before I got the pictures yesterday.

Sunday.

In the morning the sun is out and the winds have stopped, a relief for hummingbirds and dogs and humans. Patience is busy back and forth feeding her chick. Or chicks: I still don’t know how many. Otto and I are away most of the day, but when we get back I hear from my neighbors that we’ve had another visitor in the yard – a red-tailed hawk who apparently decided to try his/her luck with the doves. This is a real surprise; the yard’s only 10 or 12 feet wide, the trees in the next yard that lean in are well over 40 feet tall and a red-tail is not a small bird that prefers open spaces.

The aviary continues to grow. Besides the doves, the starlings and the robins (and of course omnipresent sparrows) we’ve had a small red bird drop by a few times – a house finch it turns out (I had to look it up) and a raven or a crow is apparently nesting nearby. I think it’s a raven though I haven’t got a good look at its tail or beak yet, as ravens are regular San Franciscans and crows only visit.

Monday.

Otto now knows exactly where the nest is but neither he nor Patience seem to care much. It was quiet when I took him out early this morning. Patience wasn’t in her nest at the time. Otto did his business and while he was doing a sniff check of the yard, Patience returned. As usual, she hovered and buzzed and made her way zig-zagging back to her nest. Otto heard her and managed to keep track as she moved about. He followed her path back to her nest and when she settled down, he went to the base of her small tree and looked up.

Since then, Otto’s paid no special attention to the spot and she’s paid none to him. He continues to chase the other birds out of the yard and that seems to suit her just fine.

Tuesday.

The winds have died down to just the normal leading and trailing edges of the fog moving in and out from the ocean. It’s cool out but anything’s better than the windstorms of the last couple weeks. Especially for hummingbirds.

I’ve found that the best time to look into the nest is mid-day when Patience is off feeding and taking a break – mom’s time off, I guess you can say.  Today was the jackpot: two pictures of two chicks. One’s above, the other here.

You can just make out the second chick’s beak between Patience and the one feeding.

Wednesday.

Patience definitely prefers her water sprayed on a plant. She lets me know by hovering near me when I’m using the hose. This isn’t the first time she’s done it. I spray the plants near her nest and a bit later she makes her way to the wet leaves and drinks. I got another look into the nest; the chicks were sleeping but appeared fine. and definitely bigger. Feather roots (what’s the correct word?) are visible on both.Patience sits higher and higher on her nest as the days go by.  Soon they won’t be able to duck below the edge and hide.

[By popular demand, here's an update on Patience the hummingbird nesting in my back yard. It's in the form of notes from the last four days. Nice to have something to write about besides health stuff - mine or the world's.]

Wednesday
I take Otto downstairs for his morning pee. When I open the door to the yard the first place I look – as always these days – is Patience’s nest. She’s standing on the edge, her long beak buried below the nest’s edge, feeding something. The eggs have hatched! Seeing me and Otto she hops back to sitting position, settling in carefully.

Afternoon: I get a peek inside the nest! The weather is calm and warm, and Patience is going back and forth catching bugs and hunting nectar. She stays near the nest but once she leaves the yard and my curiosity gets the better of me and I look inside the nest. Next to an unhatched egg is a small bit of motionless gray the size of a Jelly Belly. It doesn’t move or make a sound, but I’ve been around enough newborn chickens and pigeons to know a hatchling isn’t a finished work.

I have my camera in hand – I always do when I’m downstairs these days – but the baby and egg are too deep inside to get a shot and I don’t dare stay long. I hear Patience’s distinctive buzz and back away. Otto lies in the sun, oblivious.

Thursday
The temperature is down 30F/18C from Tuesday. Very San Francisco: when the fog returns after a heatwave we say the air conditioner’s back on. I check Patience several times. She’s always very busy, in and out, flitting everywhere. Once I try to look in nest again but she comes rushing back, disproving. She’s not so calm about my presence now – or Otto’s.

During one of her forages she pays attention to Otto for the first time, hovering above his head and then in front of him and at his side. He seems to have a hard time seeing her because of her size and ability to teleport to different spots but he has no trouble hearing her so he gives one of his famous head tilts and follows her buzz closely. A moment later Patience flies off, curiosity apparently satisfied.

I change the syrup in the old hummingbird feeder I resurrected. I’m not sure she uses it but I know another hummingbird has: it did so while Patience was in her nest and I in the chair nearby. I also saw her displeasure at another hummer being so close to her nest. “Territorial,” the guides describe the genus.

In the evening the winds that hit before the heatwave return as do the starlings. From upstairs I clap my hands once sharply and they fly away.

Friday
Wind, wind, wind. The temperature is down almost 40F/22C over Tuesday. The conditions outside are horrible; even Otto doesn’t want to go out. Patience’s tree whips back and forth and she rides her nest like a barely-in-control boat in a storm. I think she’s in the state of torpor hummers go into in lieu of sleep but it’s hard to tell.

The winds pound the city all day. I worry that Patience or her chicks won’t survive. I can’t imagine really how she could.

I return about 5pm expecting the worst. Yet I open the door to the yard and in the cherry sapling still bending in the wind Patience clings to the edge of her nest, feeding the invisible contents. Seeing me she settles back in, but higher up than she used to sit. I spray the nearby plants with water and leave her be. She’s struggled enough for one day.

Saturday
The winds died down last night and the day is cool but pleasant. Patience is sitting on her nest when I check in the morning. I can’t stick around but I do a bit of watering before I go. The dry winds dehydrate plants in a flash and several are wilting. Also, waterdrops on plants are a hummer’s preferred way of getting moisture as far as I can tell.

I return with Otto in the afternoon and we spend some time in the yard. He sits in the sun, I putter with plants, my camera nearby. Patience is on her nest per usual. She stays put while I move about but eventually I hear her leave. I don’t approach the nest too closely. Instead I try a few test shots. The tree’s in deep shade at this point, and even setting the ISO to 1600 it’s hard to get a blur-free shot. I set it as best I can and wait for her to return.

She’s all over the place. I sit next to Otto in the sun and she puts on quite a show. Up and down and all over the yard, she pulls bugs out of mid-air, dips into flowers, goes after water sprayed on plants. At one point she stops on an old trellis and cleans herself. Otto sees her, gives a head-tilt and watches. I tell him to stay still – he’s been given free run to chase the starlings out of the yard for her benefit and I don’t want him going after her too. He doesn’t need to be held back; he seems as curious about her as she was about him yesterday.

She returns to her nest and this time rather than settling in, she settles on the rim and feeds the still invisible chicks. I use plural, but I don’t know if both have hatched or just the one; I’ve not gotten a peek in since that first day. Slowly I approach with the camera. She looks at me, but keeps on feeding. I snap a couple of shots before she gets nervous and settles back over her brood.

Evening, the winds are back and the trees are whipping about in the yard. Otto doesn’t want to stay out long. Patience is in for another tough night.

[A hummingbird, who I've named Patience for reasons that would be obvious if you saw the effort she is spending, has built a nest in my small city back yard. I haven't posted much about it here, but you can catch up on my Flickr page here and here and here. The following is the latest news.]

The drama in my back yard gets more intense as the hatching of Patience’s eggs gets closer.

It’s very hot here in San Francisco right now. Temps hit 93F/35C yesterday and 90+ so far today, something that only happens once or twice a year when a mass of high pressure air presses down hard on the west coast. (And oh! do we San Franciscans suffer! This is a town that calls 75F/23C a heatwave!)

The critters feel the heat too. Otto (my dog) mopes about as if his destiny is a barbecue spit and refuses to walk more than a block. Birds of all kinds flock to my yard to get water from the old planter saucer I keep filled for them. Otto and I are spending a lot of time outside because my apartment is too hot: it has huge windows, which are wonderful most of the time but on hot days turns the place into a microwave oven.

So we’re out back, Otto and I, and I watch Patience the hummingbird get off her nest periodically to cool herself and probably her eggs, since optimum temperature for hummingbird eggs is 96F/36C and she doesn’t have to use much body heat to get there right now. The eggs are due to hatch any time, though they’re still eggs and not chicks as of this writing: I peeked when she took her last break.

Patience’s alert level has definitely moved up a notch to orange; she’s become very picky about who is allowed in the yard and who isn’t. To my continuing amazement, Otto and I pass muster. I think she gives Otto a pass because he often runs off the other birds who linger too long around the water dish which is very much to her liking (more on that in a moment). That he doesn’t seem to even be aware of her – she moves too fast, has no scent to sniff, never goes down to his level – probably helps.

And me? Well, this will doubtless draw charges of anthropomorphizing or being off my meds or just plain old-fashioned California kookiness, but it is my strong sense that she considers me a sort of ally in her efforts. She won’t leave her nest for long and never leaves sight of it – unless I’m sitting in the red chair a few feet away. Seriously: I just returned outside after an absence of a few hours and I no sooner sat down than she zoomed off into the next yard, first letting me know she’s going as she always does by hovering above me for a few seconds and making her little clicks.

She was gone about five minutes this time (that’s when I did the egg check), again hovered where I could hear her and then made the five-point maneuver around the tree and into her nest she does every time she returns. If I’m somewhere else in the yard or going in and out her behavior’s different: she doesn’t come near me and she doesn’t leave sight of the nest.

Yesterday Otto and I watched transfixed as she chased a dove out of the yard – thus the picture and the title of this post. She was very aggressive about it, chasing the dove to the roof of our four story building. The pair of doves have been around much longer than Patience, but she doesn’t care: she just wants them gone. She repeated her chase later in the afternoon with both of the pair and again succeeded. I’m surprised by this. I knew she distrusted the starlings – she gets very agitated when they dig for bugs below her tree. (Otto runs the starlings out of the yard which may be why she gives him a pass.) But doves? It’s hard to see doves as a threat, but what do I know about life’s dangers from a hummingbird’s perspective (cats excepted)?

So we all, critters and me, await the Event. This “wild kingdom” saga transpiring in my small back yard in one of the densest neighborhoods of San Francisco is a thrill to watch. And to be a part of, whether I really am or not.

More, as hatchings occur.

It is bloody hard to write these days. The meds and the HCV virus cause brain fogs, made worse by a month long cold/infection and an invasion of allergies brought about by every pollen known to planet earth. I am befuddled: Laying word upon word is a constant wrestle.

I have two articles in the works for this blog, but neither is ready for prime-time, so we’ll have to make do with pictures. Fortunately, the viral fog does not affect my visual acumen quite so much.

Strange streets: Go to your chair!

This chair was briefly abandoned across the street from my building,
turned as you see against the wall. ”Go to your chair!” ordered some snarky school teacher - that’s what came to mind when I saw it.

Patient Patience

I have the extraordinary fortune of watching a hummingbird build and sit on a nest in my back yard this season.
You can see more pics of her and read a bit about her travails on my Flickr page.