The Birth of A Hummingbird

Two links to photos of hummingbird nests, eggs, and the baby Hummers hatching out and then growing to the point of them leaving the nests. Absolutely amazing!

http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/

htpp://community.webtv.net/hotmail.com/verle33/HummingBirdNest

Many thanks to a friend named David, who so kindly found these wonderful links and sent them to me. David is a classmate of my wife, Bonnie, and with whom we are going to travel across country to Alabama, to attend their 45th High School Reunion this year. Thank you David, the photos are absolutely beautiful!

I hope my readers enjoy these links as much as I did!

Ron, the Plant Man

Feeding my Hummers

I'm doing another story about one of my favorite topics, Hummingbirds. Some of you reading this blog might have already read about this story of when I fed the Hummers at my job at South Coast botanic Gardens on the Palos Verdes Peninsula through emails that I have sent out. As many of you already know, I used to teach children's gardening and nature study classes at the Gardens, and I maintained Hummingbird feeders around the childrens area, both for the teaching opportunities and just for the pleasure of watching the antics of the Hummers as they fed on the sugar water in the feeders. We had so many Hummingbirds using the feeders that they needed to be filled two times a day, so my first job in the mornings was to clean and fill the feeders, and then usually just before going home for the night, I would have to fill them again. Many days when I had classes going, I would have kids who wanted to help with the cleaning and filling of the feeders.

We had a large outdoor sink area that served a variety of uses. Vegetables harvested from the gardens were cleaned there before they went home with the children. Also this is where all the gardening tools were cleaned before being put away after using them. There were several sinks so it allowed more than one person at a time to use them. This was also where we made up the sugar water solution to put in the feeders. Each feeder was cleaned out with a brush before it was re-filled with the food.

When I would arrive at the Gardens in the mornings, usually the feeders would be mostly empty, and the Hummers would be hungry. I would gather up the feeders and take them to the sink area and proceed to get them ready to be filled. As the Hummers were familiar with my routine, they would tend to congregate near the sink area while I was working. There was one particular male Hummingbird that was a little more impatient than the others and he would perch himself on the sink faucet handle to wait for the first feeder to be filled. Once the first one was filled, he would hover right in front of me waiting for me to attach the bottom part to the feeder, turn it over and then right there, he would drink and drink from the feeder like it was going to be his last meal! When he was satisfied, off he would go...perhaps to hunt out his favorite flowers so he could get more food! Then as I would carry the feeders back to the locations where they would hang, I would be followed by several Hummers darting around me excitedly in anticipation of them being hung up so they too could drink their fill!

I was told, but haven't confirmed this from anyone else, but did you know that during the winter months, when the nights are so long, that Hummingbirds need to find food and eat within the first 20 minutes of waking up or they will starve to death! Talk about a precarious situation to be in! Makes me feel good about always keeping my feeders full for them.

That's all for this time. Hope you enjoy my posts.

Ron, the Plant Man

Hummingbird Nests

Hello to all! Just wanted to add another post to my blog, and wanted to continue along with my Hummingbird line.

I always thought this was an interesting bit of information about Hummingbirds that I learned while working at South Coast Botanic Gardens. There was a tour guide named Eric Brooks, who worked there and was also a bird watcher. He taught me a lot about birds and especially Hummingbirds, and he also provided me with my first Hummingbird feeders to put up and attract the Hummers to the area where I worked.

Eric showed me a Hummingbird nest one day and pointed out to me how the nest had been 'decorated', or perhaps 'camouflaged' might be a better word to use. You can see from the photograph all the little bits of materials that are stuck onto the outside of the nest. The Hummers use materials that are locally available to put around the nest so it will 'blend in' with the surroundings. Most commonly available materials for them to use are lichens, mosses and bits of leaves. However, on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where South Coast Botanic Gardens is located, it is a rather affluent neighborhood with a rural flare to it and horses are very much the norm. Horses mean stables and horse trails, and stables and horse trails lead to wooden structures, so City codes were established that all wooden structures had to be painted white which made the neighborhoods look nice and clean. This also meant that one of the most available materials in the area were flecks of white paint, and sure enough, the Hummingbird nest Eric showed me was decorated with flecks of white paint all around the outside of the nest! What opportunists these hummingbirds are!

I'd like to thank Cindy McNatt for allowing me to use the Hummingbird photograph above. Cindy is the Garden editor of the Orange County Register and also publishes a daily blog called Dirt du Jour. Although we have never met personally or spoken on the phone, I feel we have become friends through her articles and blogs and many emails sent back and forth. Cindy is also the one who encouraged me to start this blog!

Have a great day!

Ron, the Plant Man

Tied to Mom's apron strings, a story about Hummingbirds!

One day many years ago, I was working at South Coast Botanic Gardens. There was a lady named Shirley Wells who lived locally who visited the Gardens everyday to observe the Hummingbirds in the Gardens. Shirley was an authority on Hummingbirds and had published many books and papers about the Hummingbirds living on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. I was fortunate to meet her and picked her brain about Hummingbirds. I recently found out she died not to long after I left the South Coast gardens and went to the headquarters garden, the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia.

I maintained several hummingbird feeders around the Childrens Garden area where where I was working so she usually spent a lot of time observing the Hummers in that area. This day she pointed out to me a new nest that had just been built. I would watch it each day also to observe what was going on. Two baby Hummers were hatched and the Mother carefully tended to them until it was time for them to leave the nest and fly away on their own. One of the babies did that, but the other just decided he didn't want to leave home. Mom encouraged him for several days, but finally gave up and decided it was time to build a new nest so she could start the next brood. She started the new nest about 10 feet away from the old one, and by this time was completely ignoring 'Junior' in the old nest. Junior watched her carefully, confused as to why he was being ignored, and when the new nest was finished, Junior happily flew over to the new nest and made himself right at home! He stayed for a couple of days while his frustrated Mother did everything possible to drive him away! Talk about being tied to his Mom's apron strings, this little guy surely was! Thank you Shirley for teaching me about Hummingbirds, I still enjoy feeding them and watching them 30 + years later!

If you like my story, leave a comment.

Ron, the Plant Man