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.

Tags: chicks, hummingbird, nest

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Essays, photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.