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.

Dead Goldfish Aren't So Bad

Normally, I would have been very unhappy to discover two of my goldfish dead in the pond, but the good news is that these two moved into our first "raccoon-proof" pond more than two years ago, after living at least one year in a Portola classroom fish bowl. They survived many fishing attempts by marauding raccoons the past late summers-early falls and seem to have lived out their goldfish lifespans.
Fish 1Fish 2It is possible that the roots of the water irises and mint plants had crowded them out or taken up too much oxygen, but knowing what survivors goldfish can be, I rather doubt it. After taking the plants out yesterday afternoon, there was still at last 15 inches of water space at the bottom, as well as space at the top of the "squarepond". Before deciding to remove the pond
Pulling out the plants in order to drain and remove the container
So now I have an opportunity to "remodel" the pond area again. It's been three years since I built the current configuration; this coming weekend, I'm going to try connecting the two ponds and giving the two koi and the four other goldfish a bigger home. Tom has his doubts that it will work since I'll need to connect the smaller pond to the bigger one with two separate pond liners and a channel under the bridge for the fish to travel between water holes. There is definitely the possibility of creating a big leak or dirt collapse, so wish me luck!This week's configuration

Koi & Goldfish 6 - Raccoons 0

I am so happy to have seen seven different raccoons in our backyard the past several weeks and none of them has caught a fish in our pond! Before I deepened and enlarged our fish ponds, I had gotten used to losing fish once they got to "good eating" size. As we begin to say goodbye to summer and look ahead to early fall (when raccoon raids have been the most destructive) it has been a pleasure to sit and watch the fish at their most active time. It has also been fun to have walked outside just as different raccoons have been crossing our pond bridge without trying to catch our fish! (By the time I had run inside for the camera, the raccoons were already in the tree or over the wall. I did get this lone 'coon as well as two of a group of four visiors.)

Home, Sweet Home

As wonderful as our vacation was, it was great to fly into LAX last night and be back in SoCal again! We rode the Roadrunner Shuttle up the coast and through Malibu Canyon as the sun was setting and it clarified just how beautiful our part of the world is. As the driver said when he picked us up, he was taking us back to paradise!
We got home right around 10 pm and Bob Cat was there to welcome us. It was so warm while we were gone that the moss and algae (that I had thinned out the day before we left town) had grown so much that you could barely hear the waterfall! This morning, I thinned it all out again and enjoyed seeing that along with the algae, the cannas, peacock orchids, and begonias had also taken off!

Tree Frog by the Pond

We heard it loudly proclaiming its presence (looking for a mate?) several weeks ago but we never saw it until recently. I ran into this little guy while I was transplanting some pots over the weekend. (A few more pictures.)

Return of the Red-shouldered Hawk

Just as I was locking up and checking on the pond before leaving for work this morning, this guy flew up from around the avocado tree. I think he might have been drinking out of the water bowl I keep filled for the cats and possums, but I'm not sure he wasn't sitting in the crook of the tree trunk waiting to catch a gopher or something.
At any rate, too little time went between my awareness of the bird and the time it took him to fly up to the neighboring roof. What I was most aware of was the hawk's wingspan - I don't think it was my imagination that made it look like 40".
I looked up information about red-shouldered hawks (University of Michigan and Cornell) and they are described with 37-44" wingspans. I'm glad I had enough time to take his picture before he flew away. Since these hawks are solitary and territorial, I'm assuming this is the same bird we were so surprised to see this summer.
Thank goodness Bob is as huge as he is. He didn't need to be hiding in the tree, but I'm glad he was!

More Pond Visitors

I have been trying to catch these birds for several weeks but wasn't able to capture them on camera until yesterday.
Last night, I surprised a couple of our neighborhood opossums as they were crossing the bridge over our pond. I'm one of the weird people who think opossums are cute and often put out old fruit for them by one of the outside water bowls. I was up late doing laundry and so surprised the little one, it jumped into the water! Luckily, it was small enough that it didn't knock anything into the water as it climbed out. What a cute little thing. I got this shot of the mother(?) when it came out from under the porch.
I've often wondered whether to call these "possums" or "opossums" but have learned that only oppossums live in North America - where they are commonly called "possums". While searching for more info about these critters, I ran across a great blog: Camera Trap Codger. Take a look and you'll see some great photos!

Yippee! Another Unsuccessful Racoon Attack

After several years of coming to our backyard ponds and cleaning them out of all fish in September and October, we hope that last night's second unsuccessful fishing expedition will reinforce the message not to go fishing in the Hundley ponds. Last time, the intruder(s?) knocked some rocks, plants, and knick knacks from the waterfall in the big pond and knocked the fountain tubing out of the square pond so that it lost about 30 inches of water. All fish survived that night. Last night, it/they messed up the water lilies but seem to have left the square pond alone. (The two goldfish living in that pond have learned to stay down deep and hardly ever come all the way to the top anymore.) They knocked over the big pottery urn and disconnected the hose from the pump in the big pond, but all fish are accounted for. Knock-on-wood that the masked critters give up and go somewhere else. (Actually, they are soooooo cute, that I wouldn't mind them just visiting and maybe just drinking from our outdoor water bowls - but that is probably too much to ask!)