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BABY PICTURES

My baby hummingbird is getting ready to fly away... but not yet.  The Mama bird will know when it's time.  The chick sits on the edge of the nest for most of the day.  Mama flies in to feed the chick, but mostly it just sits and waits.  I'm careful while getting the pictures not to startle the chick.  It seems to know we're friends.

I didn't report earlier that one of the birds didn't thrive.  Apparently nature has a way of ensuring the survival of the strongest.  A couple of days after the chicks hatched, when they were both just scrawny grotesques which only a mother could love,  I noticed as I walked past them that one was dangling by a little claw from the edge of the nest.  I didn't know what to do.  I didn't want to touch it, afraid I might leave a scent the mother would  reject.  I got a spoon from the kitchen and carefully lifted it back into the nest beside its sibling.  The next day it was gone completely.  I'm sure it wasn't taken by an animal or the other would have been taken, too.  I'm guessing the mother bird has a way of knowing when it's clear that only one can survive, and she puts her energy into taking care of that one.

I'm in love with this little creature. I'm guessing that it will be able to leave the nest within the next week.  We are blessed in my house to have been privileged to see it grow from the virtually hairless, helpless breathing thing it was three weeks ago into this magnificent youngster waiting to be fed and biding time patiently until it is strong enough to fly away. In spite of everything... YES!