A Walk in the Park...

My neighbor made the papers the other day; well, his photo did. I can’t but help to want to share them here and Bob was gracious enough to let me. Are these the cutest pictures you’ve ever seen? It’s not often we get to see a momma bear and her three cubs, let alone walking through town in broad daylight! My friend Janey got a shot of one of the youngsters up in Bob & Connie’s tree, right across the street from where I live.

Then this morning I got a call at 7:30 from another friend…Jerry (the same one who took the hummingbird photos here). He called to say he’d found a hummingbird nest and did I want to go take photos of the tiny little thing?

Well, first I let him know I’d only just got up (Zeus, the Mighty Dog, apparently scented the bears in our yard again and went on bark-alert several many times from inside the house last night (yes, the feeders were in)), and secondly I suggested he call our friend Janey who is another Class A photographer and artist. We all met half an hour later.

Jerry explained he’d found the nest nearly a month and a half ago, and seen no eggs in it at that time. He said it appeared to be an unused nest, as there was the odd leaf inside. But now a bird was sitting on it, which he thought was awful late and I couldn’t agree more. It’s the middle of August! We were kinda sad at what was clearly a huge mistake….on her part.

Jerry, his son, Janey and I all watched and took photos of the bird on the nest…from a distance; I couldn’t bear spooking her…late in the season or no. We discussed the probability of eggs hatching this late in the year. When another bird came around, some suggested it might be the mate. I explained (I’m the Bird Lady, after all), that hummingbird males have nothing to do with the females after they’ve bred; they don’t help build nests nor do they feed young. We decided it was just a very curious bird wondering what we were doing all standing in a line watching the trees. There are lots of hummingbirds around, after all.

Then, to our surprise, that female landed on the nest and fed the other bird! It was her baby! The mistake had been ours, of course. We were all greatly relieved to know this was a successful Broad-tailed Hummingbird nesting, and surmised the other bird hanging around was the other fledgling.

As we watched, the youngster turned around and awkwardly left the nest and flew up to another branch. For as patient as it had been, it had had enough; we got to see it fledge! I have included Jerry’s beautiful shot of the youngster and Janey’s too, as she also sent a few for the blog.

One of these days, I’ll either get my camera fixed (sadly, I dropped it) or I’ll manage to buy a decent one. [sigh, I’m so jealous]

Unmarked and unfocused shots are mine, the rest belong to some very gracious friends of mine. Thanks! ...and oh look, Janey just sent another shot of Mamma feeding youngster!

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For those of you who'd like to see an incredible story by an awesome story teller/ photographer, visit Nature Remains, another blog I throughly enjoy. The author, Nina, writes in a poetic style that takes you right into her world and tells her story of finding a hummingbird nest below her window. Do yourself a favor and read the story sequentially…that would be from the bottom of this page…up!