amazing birds 😀

Thanks for that, it is a beautiful bird, with an impressive beak.

I can only hear aircraft flying overhead though, do they start humming after their babies have hatched?

Maybe after they’ve dropped the piano ?

You hum it son, I’ll play it.

It’s night time in Oceanside California, Olive is a tad restless. Her breathing seems very fast! Hope she’s okay 🙁

@ernielynch i think that she is fine (hummingbirds seem to do everything at warp speed). she is a very experienced mother by all accounts with the mods/stream owner on the stream.

Yeah I expect hummingbirds to have fast metabolism I am just surprised that her breathing should appear to be so fast at night time when she should be resting!

I have no idea what the life expectancy of an Allen’s hummingbird is, not many years I would have thought, and I know that Olive is several years old.

there is a newly hatched chick in the nest now 😀

Oh brilliant, thanks for that – I’ve checking on Olive regularly!

You can see them just before 7am local time. I notice that she hasn’t slung the egg shells out of the nest, which surprises me. But she’s an experienced mum so I guess that she knows what she’s doing.

Edit: I can’t figure out if they have both hatched or just the one? I wouldn’t expect a great deal of time lapse between them.

only the one chick so far i think. the 2nd egg maybe a couple of days after (i could be wrong though? thinking like owls lay every other day).

Laying eggs a couple of days apart doesn’t necessarily mean different hatching times.

I wouldn’t have expected Olive to sit on the first egg until the second one was laid. That would defer the development of the first egg so that its hatching was synchronized with that of the second egg.

Nestlings at different stages of development is not really a good thing.

ah just asked the chat in livestream.

the last nest was a day between hatching (they had 2 eggs then also).

hopefully tomorrow the second will hatch.

Okay, that might explain why she hasn’t thrown the used eggshells out of the nest.

I based my comment on pigeons btw – they won’t sit on their eggs until the second one is laid, consequently they both hatch at pretty much the same time.

Pigeons also take it in turns sitting on eggs, is Olive the only one doing the sitting, or is her ol man giving a hand?

by all accounts the male only mates with the female hummingbird then leaves so it is all down to the female to brood on the nest and bring up the little ones when hatched.

olive is an absolute legend i have to say 😀

Sweet little birds, a shame we don’t have them here.

just to put some perspective as to how tiny they are the eggs by all accounts are the size of tic taks and the nest is barely bigger than a 50 cent piece. olive is about the same length as your pinky finger (not including her beak). just incredible

She is out of the nest ATM, what strikes me when she leaves the nest is how beautifully constructed it is.

I assume the nest’s lining is her feathers. It looks incredibly cosy. The other day you could hear very heavy rain although she remained completely dry, so it is presumably quite sheltered.

ah the nest interior is actually cotton.

the owner of the stream he leaves out cotton for her to use to line her nest with.

he also has some blinds around the nest to help protect her and the nest from bad weather.

here are some links

olive’s nest area https://artisticimages.com/wp-content/uploads/Olives-Nest-Area-1.jpg

olive’s feeder outside window https://artisticimages.com/wp-content/uploads/Olives-Feeder-outside-the-kitchen-window-scaled.jpg

not olive’s nest but an example of size of the nest with eggs https://artisticimages.com/wp-content/uploads/egg-size.jpg

cotton options for her https://artisticimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2-cotton-scaled.jpg

she will actually collect spider silk to help make her nest too

Thread of the week this.

ah the nest interior is actually cotton.

Well it certainly looks like cotton wool but I assumed it was her down as I didn’t think she would have access to much more!

She obviously knew exactly how to use it!

Thread of the week this.

Indeed. I find myself constantly checking up on Olive!

Watching her feed the baby is lovely but also a bit freaky, beak as long as the whole chick!

We had a blackbird nest right outside the front window one year, in a rosebush, you could look right into it, I couldn’t stop watching- I would have killed for those chicks. But then we went away on holiday and they all fledged while we were away 🙁 they still used to use our hedge a lot and came back to feed but I was absolutely bereft at losing “my” babies.

2nd egg now hatched! 😀

Great news 👍

I was reading yesterday about her two previous offsprings, I hope Olive has better luck this time 🙁

I believe that Allen’s hummingbird mothers carry on feeding their young for several weeks after they have left the nest. It would be nice if Olive was able to do that.

Those chicks are tiny. Obsessive viewing.

Those chicks aren’t tiny anymore!

There’s not much room left now in the nest.

Chicks there at the moment – assume mother’s gone foraging.

Olive fed them last at about 16.50 UK time, I think, that’s when I saw her last, if you want to go back and have a look.

She doesn’t spend much time with them now, just feeds them. Until about half an hour ago I hadn’t seen her since the day before yesterday.

Cheers, I didn’t realise that – I only watch sporadically and hadn’t seen the chicks so far so got quite excited!

If you manage to pull it back to 09.00.50am to 09.01.50am local time you will see her feeding the chicks and doing a bit of housework to the nest.

This is a rather wonderful piece, about a chap who rescued a very young hummingbird from the side of the road and got it back up to strength. Genuinely heartwarming.

Man Teaches Rescued Baby Hummingbird How to Fly

@CountZero that was fantastic thanks for the link 😀

They aren’t much smaller than Olive now, I guess they will have vacate the nest soon and they won’t be seen anymore 😢

Watching her feed them with all those long sharp pointy beaks clashing against eachother is slightly unnerving. I keep thinking that someone will have their eye out in a minute.

I believe that she will carry on feeding them for about 3 weeks after they have left the nest, it’s a shame that cameras won’t be able to record that, presumably.

They can’t both fit in the nest anymore – it can’t be long before they leave now 😔

And they’ve gone ☹️

Camera’s moved so you can see them on a branch

Thanks! 🙂

It was pointing at an empty nest earlier.

She’s back!

Awesome! New eggs 😃