Baby Hummingbirds!

A week after noticing the nest in our avocado tree and seeing the mother bird was letting me take pictures while she was away, I went upstairs to get a closer look from the balcony. What a wonderful surprise to see eggs in the nest!This morning, I was a little worried when I didn't see the eggs (a nesting pair of scrub jays had been noisily announcing themselves the day before.)When Mama came back, she appeared to be feeding a little beak.I was delighted to see two baby birds in the nest! They are far from cute at this point - blind, featherless with bulging eyeballs and tiny beaks. Thankfully, it is warm this week so Mama can leave them long enough to find food for them:Don't forget to click on the pictures to see the bigger versions.(Sitting on the nest with squirmy babies underneath is not as stable as before!)
According to several websites, hummingbird eggs take an average of two weeks to incubate, so Mama camoflaged her nest well enough we didn't see it for at least a week! It will be fun to watch the babies grow feathers and learn to fly. Stay tuned!

Hummingbirds in the Backyard

I've been watching a couple of hummingbirds in the yard this weekend and was happy to see that one of them let me take some closeup shots with my camera this morning.
I wondered why this one was sitting in one spot for such a long time - until I took a closer look and discovered it was nesting! I am also able to see the tiny bird and her nest from our balcony.

I caught this shot while the bird was out of the nest for a while. One of the little birds was on the telephone wire and chirped a warning for the other to come back. Now whenever I've gone out and found the nest empty, one of them comes back to the tree but doesn't immediately go back to the nest. It is pretty well hidden, so I guess they either know that, or have seen me enough times to know I won't hurt them.
(If you click on any of these photos, you'll see the bigger versions. If you click on the two photos of the tree, you'll see the bird in her nest. The last shot is a wide-angle shot from the balcony. I've drawn an arrow and labeled the location of the nest since it is really hard to find when you have the whole tree to look at.

Venus, Jupiter, and the Crescent Moon

I shot these photos from our balcony on Sunday. There was too much light around to really show the crescent of the moon, but it helped when I shot from behind the curtain. Too bad the double-paned windows created some "echos" because as NPR and The Manila Times stated, depending on where you were on the globe, some people could see a "smiley face" and other people saw a "frowny face".:
This article by AP Science Writer, Seth Borenstein - published Tue Nov 25, 4:21 pm ET - put me on notice to look in the sky yesterday. I was so busy and tired after the Alternative Christmas Faire, it took a phone call from Tom (who almost always works in his classroom on Sunday evenings) to tell me to look at the sky Sunday around 6pm.

(Quoting from Yahoo! News):
It's not just families that are getting together this Thanksgiving week. The three brightest objects in the night sky — Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon — will crowd around each other for an unusual group shot.

Starting Thanksgiving evening, Jupiter and Venus will begin moving closer so that by Sunday and Monday, they will appear 2 degrees apart, which is about a finger width held out at arm's length, said Alan MacRobert, senior editor at Sky and Telescope magazine. Then on Monday night, they will be joined by a crescent moon right next to them, he said.

Look in the southwestern sky around twilight — no telescope or binoculars needed. The show will even be visible in cities if it's a clear night.

"It'll be a head-turner," MacRobert said. "This certainly is an unusual coincidence for the crescent moon to be right there in the days when they are going to be closest together."

The moon is the brightest, closest and smallest of the three and is 252,000 miles away. Venus, the second brightest, closest and smallest, is 94 million miles away. And big Jupiter is 540 million miles away.

The three celestial objects come together from time to time, but often they are too close to the sun or unite at a time when they aren't so visible. The next time the three will be as close and visible as this week will be Nov. 18, 2052, according to Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.

I took the rest of these yesterday after work - before the moon and planets set into the fogbank that has been hanging out in the area for over a week:

(If you click on the photos, you'll see bigger versions)I took this last one from Oxnard Shores. It was pretty dark but you can see the moonlight on the water and that light on the horizon is an oil platform.

A New Pond Visitor

We were lucky to see this guy before he saw us!
We hope there isn't enough flying room between the bridge and the avocado tree for him to try catching fish in his talons because he is gorgeous and we'd love to see him up close again!

Watching the Fish

One day before I broke my leg, I finally finished my pond "remodel". (I'll link to photos of the process when I get a chance.) There are still plants and rocks that need to be put back and more plants to add, but until my leg is healed, I'll just have to wait. Tom moved a few things for me (especially the fish!) and feeds them every night. During the recent heat wave, we've really enjoyed sitting on the back porch with our evening drinks, watching the fish eat. Here's a video I put together as the fish learned it was safe to come out and eat while we are still in the area.

See You Next Time

Alan is flying home tonight and I almost feel like we had a little vacation ourselves! It's been nice to spend time with our old friend and to look at where we live through a visitor's eye. (Never mind all the cold rain - the snow that still hasn't melted is fantastic!)We had a nice dinner at Cholada with Mitch and Julie last night and Alan and I walked around Bubbling Springs Park and Hueneme Beach on my lunch hour. I'm so glad he finally got some sunny days at the end of his vacation!

Looking Back at the Holidays: Hundley Christmas in Ventura

It was nice to be home and see all three of "the kids" together at one time. Sam flew down on Friday and we had a Christmas celebration on the Saturday before Christmas with Dad, Jane, Ron, Bryan, April and Lindsay!
Ever since Sam moved up north, we have not had everyone together at one time - we only missed Tim and Mary Ann this year.

It's Hard to Hate Something This Cute But . . .

After weeks of waking up to a vandalized fish pond, I finally met the culprit face-to-face in the wee hours of the night last night.As you can see, he was quite wet and had already been in the pond several times. Whenever the ScareCrow would shoot him/her with water, the raccoon would run away. A couple of seconds later, it headed back into the pond. Tom threw little rocks at it but it seems quite at home under the house and in our yard!It's too bad I've always been fascinated by raccoons and their cute faces and intelligent ways. Now that the koi are safe in their deep pond, I've gotten used to losing goldfish once or twice a year. If they didn't do so much damage to the plants and fountains, I could live with these masked varmints.
Before we leave this topic, take a look at this little video I shot in early September. You can see what this "small nocturnal carnivore" destroyed:

Oh No, Here We Go Again

The three weeks before, during, and after our Chicago vacation (never got around to blogging about our fun trip to a fabulous city, so take a look at our photos that never got edited: Oct. 22-23, Oct. 24, and Oct. 25) brought the return of two very familiar and unwelcome phenomena in these parts - wildfires and fish-eating raccoons! Of course the heartbreak, loss, and danger of the former is on such a higher scale of importance - the latter doesn't compare. The media covered the horrible fires up and down SoCal extensively; I won't mention any more for now. Judging by the darkness of the sky the afternoon the Malibu fire began and the smoke in the air even the night we returned, the fires were horrible. But on a smaller scale, we seem to have lost all but one goldfish to a raccoon who seems to be ignoring our high-pressure water-shooting ScareCrow. It came back again last night - for at least the sixth time in three weeks - I thought it had eaten all the bigger fish, but I saw one survivor this morning!