Hummingbirds in My Yard: Or How I Learned Not to Call Myself an Ornithologist
When I was exhibiting my prints last month at the Golden Fine Arts Festival, a young woman studied them intently and then with brow furrowed asked me, “So, are you an ornithologist?” I consider that to be a loaded question. I like to think I know a lot about birds such as being able to tell a bald eagle from a goldfinch and I’ve taken online classes from the Cornell University School of Ornithology (no admission requirements other than a credit card for the class) but sensing a trap I hedged by flippantly answering, “I only play one on TV”. Her brow actually furrowed more and then she walked out of my booth. What she should have asked was a more direct, “Can you tell a live bird from a dead one” because I would have unhesitatingly responded, “No!” Let me explain.
As many of you know, every summer for the last four years I devote one month’s post to “Flora”, a Broad-tailed Hummingbird that returns to my backyard every Spring. Quotes are used because I have no idea if that has been one Flora or several. Female hummingbirds that take up residence in my yard shall forever be known as Flora.
Above - Here is the first hummingbird I saw this year. It’s a male (you can tell from the bright red chin called a gorget) Broad-tailed Hummingbird on a trail near my house.
Flora returns to nest every year, though I don’t always find the nest. Sometimes it’s in a tree in my yard and other times it’s in a neighbor’s tree adjacent to my yard. One day this past May my neighbor excitedly ran over to me and announced that he noticed TWO Broad-tailed Hummingbird nests in a tree in his yard right next to mine. What’s more, he claimed they were almost side-by-side in the same tree. I sincerely doubted that two notoriously territorial hummingbirds coexisted within a couple feet of each other. So I grabbed my binoculars, a stepladder and I looked. He was right! Two female hummingbirds were sitting on their respective nests about two feet apart. But I soon noticed something odd. The one nest sitter was actively looking around, even changing positions in the nest while the other one barely moved. Actually, it never moved. Sadly, I could tell it was dead. I saw no signs of physical stress to the little hummingbird so its death was likely due to something like a parasite rather than a predator. My neighbor swears he had seen both hummers zipping in and out of the tree as recently as a couple days prior. I took no action to remove the dead bird so as not to disturb the active nest as well as to let nature take its course. I won’t post the photo here but if you’d like to see it click here. There is nothing “gross” or disturbing about the photo other than knowing the one on the left is not alive.
For various reasons I was unable to check out the active nest for the next couple of weeks and when I did it was abandoned. Sadly, I had gone from potentially viewing four baby hummingbirds (two is the typical number of eggs per nest) to none. And I assumed that was it for the summer, at least in my yard.
But one day in August, out of pure luck, I observed Flora zipping in and out of one of my pine trees, the same tree, in fact, that had yielded nests in the past although none successfully. Sure enough, I could see a thimble-sized but well-constructed nest with Flora sitting on it! It seemed pretty late in the season to lay eggs, hatch them, feed the babies and then watch them fledge all before the traditional leave date of Labor Day for hummingbirds here. But sure enough I eventually observed two tiny beaks peeking out of the nest begging for food that Mom faithfully delivered.
Above - Mom shows to feed begging babies in the nest
Then, in just a couple days, it appeared history repeated itself. Mom was nowhere to be found anymore, and I saw no action in the nest any time of the day. How sad for Flora (and me) once again. And to make matters worse, I saw her seemingly lifeless body sitting in the nest a couple weeks later. OR SO I THOUGHT!
Above - At first I thought this hummingbird was the Mom but it’s actually the baby getting near to fledging the nest. And notice it’s sticking its tongue out trying to experiment with tasting new things including, in this case, air!
A couple days later I checked out the nest to see if I should maybe remove her from the nest but she ever so slightly moved her head. And then another hummingbird moved to the nest…and began feeding the one in it! What??? What just happened?
Above - Baby hummingbirds practice flying by doing the wing action while remaining grounded in the nest. The next day this one did it for real!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I cannot call myself an ornithologist. That baby was perfectly fine and far from dead. It was fully grown (baby hummingbirds grow fast) and over the next couple days practiced “flying” by moving its wings furiously while staying grounded in the nest. One morning I photographed it doing its training exercises and returned later only to find it had fledged out of the nest. Recent fledglings tend to stay nearby with Mom and that is exactly what happened.
Above - The baby fledged and was trying to catch raindrops in its beak (that’s what the streak are)!
I was able to see it was a male with the beginnings of a red gorget on its chin. Mom and son hung out together for a few days, but Labor Day was rapidly approaching and, sure enough, they left my yard for warmer climes. And I have never been so happy to misidentify a “dead” bird for a live one. So I will continue to simply admit “I only play one on TV”.
Above - This is the last hummingbird I saw this year. It was at a park ear my house. Notice how the foliage is starting to turn Fall colors. That’s pretty rare to see a hummingbird in front of Fall foliage colors.