And we thought our babies grew up fast

On June 7th I first noticed our hummingbird mommy sitting on her nest. I had noticed her flitting about a day or so before and I think she laid her eggs right about this time.

On June 24 I took my first peek into the nest and found a little blob already about 3-4 times the size of the egg (or shell) in the nest with it.

Things moved quickly after that. Mommy sat on the nest less frequently, but came by often to feed the baby. I never managed to capture her actually feeding, but here's a picture of her on June 26th.



I did catch a video of the little one giving himself a bath, though, on July 3rd.





And we started seeing a lot of this greedy little mouth sticking up higher and higher (June 29).


Yesterday I noticed he was getting a bit too big for his quarters. Beak and bottom were both sticking out all the time.

Today I noticed him trying his wings a little and I thought it might be The Big Day. But then he snuggled down back into the nest as if perhaps the thought was still too scary.

When I saw him venture out of the nest onto the light I grabbed the camera again.




I watched for awhile as he screwed up his courage. I put the camera away and came back to the window to watch just a little bit more.

And as I was watching, he flew away.

Purple Funks and tiny lumps

I haven't felt like blogging because I've been in a deep blue funk. So deep it's purple. I'm not sure if I can even blog about it, but it concerns the loss of self, identity and life that comes from having a baby, quitting your job and moving thousands of miles all at once.

Anyway. I did have something nice to blog about but couldn't get a picture.

Faith and patience have paid off for mommy hummingbird. Eric had the ladder out so I carefully climbed up and took a peek into the nest. It contains an egg the size of a jellybean and a little brown lump, softly dusted with feathers and breathing lightly.

The lump is much larger than the egg so it's either the empty shell or one that sadly won't hatch.

I'll keep trying to get better pictures.

Outside my windows

We live quite near a large park, but I'm still occasionally stunned by the amount of wildlife we enjoy in our yard.

Outside one window today, a mommy hummingbird on a nest. I'm so excited!

Outside the other window, within minutes of noticing the mommy, I saw a hawk having breakfast. It's kind of hard to see in the picture. I didn't want to go outside and disturb it. Whatever it was eating is in the tree down and to the right of it.

It wasn't the hummingbird. I checked.