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Well it’s been about a week since mama completed her nest and made a career out of keeping her eggs warm and tended for. I anticipate less than a week until they hatch. The nest has gotten larger and she now spends a great deal of time there holding on as the wind will toss this branch around a bit at times. I haven’t been able to verify if she’s using the feeder Mom and I installed last weekend but I do think that the level of fluid has gone down (and not by evaporation). Unfortunately, I haven’t been home that much this week to keep an eye on her and her activities to see if she’s actually using the feeder though (I sure hope she is). Here are some additional pics:
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Here’s a close-up shot of the nest from the other side. You can see how the choice of location is actually pretty typical of hummingbirds. They like to be out of the sun, high up so the shakes and rodents can’t reach them, and have some shelter from the rain and wind. Nice job mama! You can also see our feeder placed relatively close to her nest.
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This shot wasn’t that easy to take (let alone get in focus). I took the opportunity when mama was out to try and get a shot of the inside of the nest without disturbing the branch. I can see one large egg but the last time I looked (about 10 days ago) we saw what looked like 3 jellybean-sized eggs. I guess we’ll see when they hatch how many there actually were…