Jammie J's Quest

I’ve been following the tale of the baby hummingbirds just outside our front door for weeks now.  I don’t know why  hummingbird mommas like to build nests in this area.  It’s such a high foot traffic area, what with all the Amazon deliveries.  heh  Also, our neighbor’s entry way is right there, too, since their front door is maybe 10′ away from ours… and they have a teenage boy and girl who go in and out all the time.  Really, it’s kind of a mystery to me what’s so attractive about this walkway for hummingbirds.  ANYWAY… last year’s hummingbird nesting didn’t end so well.  The news got out in the neighborhood about our baby hummingbirds last year, and the neighborhood kids were over here pulling on branches and trying to see in the nest, and one day just a couple weeks after they had hatched, the babies completely disappeared.  I want to believe that the momma bird relocated them, but I know that’s not very likely.

That made this year a real treat… given where the nest was located on a flimsy branch and the way their little nest split apart when the babies started growing (who knew baby hummingbirds could have too much butt??), we guessed that this might have been a first time momma.  We hope she does better next year.  So, we worked to protect them… Tony constructed a support beam and wrapped paper towels around it to provide  “extra” nest (Tony checked on them last Sunday, Mother’s Day, and one of the babies had fallen out of the nest and was clutching onto a tiny twig for dear life, so that’s when he did nest construction!), and we blocked our pathway with a garbage can and put a sign out to the community’s landscapers to stay away, it was effective for delivery people as we found packages tucked behind our garbage can (ha), and we even tried to enter and exit through the garage when it was feasible, and we didn’t tell any of the neighbors about this every day miracle.  Her nest for sure wouldn’t have stood up to the kidhandling that happened last year.

Then… Saturday, I was in the garage and noticed the momma hummingbird was divebombing anything that moved within a 20′ radius, and she was screeching at everything.  I went around the corner of the garage to put something in the garbage and she screeched at me.  I noticed around noon that even our neighbors were entering and exiting through their garage, instead of their front door.  That made me laugh, because normally Saturdays and Sundays are filled with door slamming noises from them.  I was amazed that someone so tiny could cause so much havoc.  But I kind of knew what was happening.  Her babies were learning to fly… and isn’t that the way any momma is when her babies are leaving the nest?

Tony discovered the nest on 4/16.  Two tiny eggs, so tiny I couldn’t even see the 2nd egg as it was hidden under the ledge of the nest.	On 4/29, they were just teeny tiny things, not even filling the nest completely.
On 5/5, they had grown so much.  We could tell the momma bird had been there frequently.  Poops everywhere!	On 5/8, they’d grown even more.
5/12, bigger yet. More feathers, too.	On 5/14, look at all those feathers, and their eyes were open!!!
Another picture from our 5/14 peek.	5/18 found one of them outside the nest.  Both didn’t fit inside the nest, so thankful Tony built them an “extra” nest.
5/20 there was lots of commotion from the momma bird.  On 5/21, their nest was empty.

I’m looking forward to seeing them at our feeders.  Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I *think* I saw one of the babies last night at our feeder… but who knows, really?