Clarissa Hope: Hummingbird Hullabaloo

Something amazing happened recently. I discovered a tiny hummingbird nest in my backyard! As most of you can already tell by my choice of background for my blog, I really like hummingbirds. I'll tell you how I discovered the nest. I was walking back around in the little grove of trees behind my house when I heard the hum of a hummingbird nearby. I looked up and sure enough there was a little one hovering right above my head. It was acting really strange though. Instead of zipping away once it saw me, it dove in closer. It kept doing that over and over, going up high and then diving down. Then it suddenly hit me, (an idea not the bird.) It was probably protecting it's nest! I've seen other birds do that and have actually been pecked on the head by a mother swallow when I walked too close to her nest. I decided to look around and see if I could spot the nest. I saw it right away, attached to a low branch. It looked like the nest was made of spiderwebs at first, but when I got closer I saw it was actually made of cotton.

We have some cotton trees that shed cotton like crazy in the summer, and I guess the hummingbird thought it would make good nest materials.

This is about how big it is compared to my hand. So tiny!

Anyway, I got closer and looked inside and guess what I saw?

Two tiny little eggs! They were about the size of jelly beans! Seriously they were so small! I went home and told my family. We looked up how long it takes for hummingbirds to hatch. I was surprised about how little time it takes. Only about two weeks! So I visited the nest daily, always with my phone ready. They hatched only about a week and a couple days after I found the nest. That means I found the nest pretty soon after the mother hummingbird laid the eggs. Here are some pictures of the babies. They are a little weird looking when they are really young, but kind of cute in an ugly way.