Shot of the Month – August 2018

Earlier this summer I had the good fortune to find an Anna’s Hummingbird nest in a park near my house.   Let me share my three-week journey with this lovely family.

The Nest

First, let’s stop to admire the nest — it is stunning.  The female builds the nest by sitting in the middle and building the cup rim around her.  The nest can be made out of plant fibers, cattail, willow, leaves, thistle, or small feathers and it is bound together with spider webs or insect cocoons.  The nest can be decorated with lichen and moss to blend in with the surroundings.  The nest is about 1 inch tall and 1.5 inches in diameter.  And the one I saw, was perfect.    I was blown away by how perfect it was.  Perfectly round.  Perfectly decorated.  Perfectly camouflaged.

It belongs in a museum.

Did I mention that it was perfect?

They Grow Up So Fast

I spent about three weeks visiting this glorious little nest because that is about how long it takes for an Anna’s Hummingbird chick to grow up and develop its wing feathers to fly away.  When I first found the nest the chicks were barely visible as they were so tiny.  Here is a breakdown of my visits to the nest.

I discovered the nest on May 19th – given the size of the chicks and from information from other photographers, I estimated that the chicks were 3 days old at this point, as indicated on my calendar to the left.  In total I made 11 visits to the nest, when the chicks were about 3,4,10,11,12,14,16,17,18,19, and 20 days old.  On the 20th day, I had the opportunity of a lifetime — I was there when the fledglings took their FIRST flight.  Even more amazingly I was video-taping (boy that term is outdated) and got the first flight on “film.”  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Let’s look at our little “photo album” from the kids’ childhood…

 

 

 

Day 3

Below, if you look closely you can the little yellow beaks of the two chicks in the nest. They are so tiny that they barely reach the top of the rim of the nest.

And here is the only clear view of a chick I got at this age. Eeeek! Uh, I mean, “Aww, he is so beautiful” “He looks just like you!” At this age, the eyes are not open yet and there is not a feather to be found on this naked little beast. He must be standing on his tippy toes to reach out this high to reach Mom’s food. Remember that the diameter of the nest is only about 1.5 inches, so the chick’s head is about the size of your fingernail!

Day 4

The chicks are so small that mom can still sit on the nest.

     Day 10
Let’s jump ahead to May 26 – day ten of their little lives. Look at how much they have grown – their heads clearly stick out above the rim of the nest. Their eyes are open. And we can see the stems of their feathers coming through.

     Day 12
Getting bigger and their feathers are filling out.

At this stage, it is starting to get crowded in the nest.

Getting bigger but the wing feathers are still filling in…

Day 17

Just over 2 weeks old and look how refined their feathers are now.

Day 18

Beautiful, though, we are going to need a bigger boat.

Demanding kids…

Day 20

And before you know it, they are proper little birds. Here is Junior’s first flight. Sniff, I am so proud…(you can also see the video here)

The chicks only flew a few feet away to a nearby branch in the same tree.

Mom’s duties continued, however, most likely for a few more days:

And so ends our time together. Well done, mum. You have raised a lovely pair of hummingbirds…

Until next month…..m

 

Nikon D4s, Nikon 600mm @ f/11, 1/125 ses, ISO 6400