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.

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I just added a Facebook badge to this blog since I obviously haven't been keeping up here. I DO have hope I'll come back and update this sooner than later!

Weeks Later, the Latest Pond Iteration is Done!

Just a few more plants and rocks to relocate and it's done!

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