Hummingbirds

I am doing a post on the hummingbirds we have in our yard and I guess I should have started with the photo of the nest with the 2 tiny little eggs in it which is photo number 4. The second picture is of a new hatchling before it has any feathers or has it's eye's open. These are not the best photos as I didn't want to bother these little babies to much or their mama. 1st pic is of the 2 babies as they were starting to get their feathers and their eyes were open here. In this pic I think they are a sleep. The 3rd pic is of a different nest in my neighbors yards that had only one chick in it. We did find 2 other nest but they were not used. The nest were about the 2 inches across when first built but seemed to stretch a bit as the chicks grew. They were made out of bits and pieces of plants including a few tiny bits of wood. The female would sort of glue them together with spider webs. I would watch her gather the spider web off of the outside of my windows with her long bill. I used to wash the spider webs off of the windows ever week or so since we seem to have an over load of granddaddy longlegs spiders but while they were building nests I left the spider webs up. My neighbor had painted an old table green that sits on her back porch and now the paint is starting to peel off, and we noticed bits of green flakes off of the table in the nests.

 I have used feeders with out the perch on them and some with and the birds seem to prefer the feeders with the perch so they can rest while feeding. I noticed the youngsters really prefer them. Also the feeders with the perch are easier to clean as they have a wider opening for reaching inside to make sure you get all of any mold that might start forming in the feeder. I use the smallest feeders I can buy and change the food almost daily. Other wise in the warm or hot weather of summer mold can form quickly. If you don't keep the mold out the hummers can get sick and die. I only have about 6 or 7 birds most summers but my sister over in Arizona has had as many as 30 this summer. My sister in Oregon can get that many coming into her feeders, too. I don't buy the mix for my birds. I don't think the red food coloring would be good for them, plus you don't need it to get the birds to the feeder. Most feeders have part of the feeder in red. I make the sweet sugar water. I use one cup of water to one forth cup of white sugar. I make several cups of it at once. My pan wholes 6 cups of water which means I use 1 and a half cups of sugar. Bring the mix to a boil and let cool. That will last my birds about 4 days since I change out the feeders daily even if there is sweet water left in them.

 Water drops in these feeders, not mold.

Here in Rio Rancho we have mostly Black Chinned Hummingbirds with a rust colored Rufus Hummer once in a while. It is the Black Chinned ones that nest here.

I get all kinds of other birds coming into the feeders for the sweet water. Like orioles, English sparrows, mockingbirds, and once in a while this woodpecker.