The Third Hatching

I don’t know if the mamma hummingbird whose two eggs hatched today or yesterday outside my window is the same bird that built nests earlier this year on my hanging flower baskets… each time two tiny white eggs, seeming too impossibly small to produce living chicks that are there today; but there they are, alive and breathing. They are just about the ugliest creatures imaginable… wrinkled black-grey skin with straggly hairs sprouting in a ridge down the back. They will become feathers and the chicks will transform into beautiful iridescent birds quickly. It’s an amazing miracle of evolution.  In three weeks the strange hairs will have become feathers capable of allowing a living creature to fly, and the chicks will be birds capable of lifting up from the spider plant and soaring away.  The mother bird has been on the nest off and on all day.  I’ve cleaned and refilled the hummingbird feeder.  I waited until she flew away to get the pictures.  I was caught in the last attempt,, and she buzzed close to my ears warning me that she wouldn’t stand for assault of any kind.  I like that bird. I won’t go back for another try today.  I don’t want to traumatize her. 

Around 9 o'clock this morning

Around noon she was sitting on the nest.

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon... see how the golden hairs have grown longer.