Hummingbirds in Arizona and beyond
This beautiful Anna’s Hummingbird mother feeds one of her two young chicks in the nest.
The hummingbird chicks are young and still have their eyes closed, as you can see from this picture from the same day. The photo above gives a nice size comparison between the mother’s fully grown beak and the young chick’s beak.
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Two very young Anna’s Hummingbird chicks sit in the nest with eyes still closed, necks outstretched, and beaks open. These baby hummingbirds hatched from the eggs pictured in Hummingbird Eggs in Nest.
Notice how short the chick’s beaks are at this stage of their growth. As a size comparison, leaves from the Texas Ebony tree are about 3/8th to 5/8th of an inch (0.9 to 1.5 cm) long in the area near the nest. See the next photo for a comparison between the young chicks’ beak size and their mother’s full grown beak.
The chicks’ beaks will be longer and showing less yellow by the time they leave the nest. See this photo of the same two hummingbird chicks a few days before they fledged.
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Two Anna’s Hummingbird eggs are visible in the reflection of a small mirror held above the nest. This picture shows the lined interior of the nest.
These hummingbird eggs are about the size of very small jelly beans. Think Jelly Belly size. Each egg is about 1/2 inch by 1/3 inch (1.3 cm by 0.8 cm) . The eggs are plain white in color.
A hummingbird nest is constructed by the female hummingbird on her own. She uses plant materials, spider webs, and her own downy feathers. This nest was less than 2 inches (5 cm) across at the top.
We discovered the nest in our yard in January 2012. It was used by a female Anna’s Hummingbird for at least two broods of two chicks each. We watched the first set of chicks through February, with the chicks leaving the nest in late February.
The hummingbird eggs pictured here were the second brood in this nest. This batch was laid in April and hatched in late April. The hummingbird chicks fledged from the nest in late May 2012.
Go here to see a nest compared to a coin.
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This Anna’s Hummingbird female sits on her nest in a Texas Ebony tree. The previous picture of Hummingbird Eggs in Nest are from this female, this nest. The photo above was taken the day after the photo of the eggs. A few days later, we saw evidence of the hummingbird chicks … and the mother was no longer routinely sitting on the nest. She was often perched on the side or nearby.
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Hummingbirds at feeder on a busy city street. We get a close view as one hummingbird after another nervously approaches this hummingbird feeder.
The feeder is hanging from the eaves of the house, about 40 feet from the side of a busy street in Arizona. City traffic, a train horn, barking dogs, and general noise are audible in the video. This background noise is typical, but it is possible to hear the chirps of the hummingbirds at the feeder. The other bird calls you hear in this video are Verdin, a small chickadee-like desert bird.
The local hummingbirds are primarily Anna’s Hummingbirds, though Black-chinned Hummingbirds and Costa’s Hummingbirds are also in the area. The hummingbirds often perch in the trees and bushes near the street. These hummingbirds are tolerant of nearby and frequent foot traffic, bicycles in the bike lane, pet noises, buses, cars, and air traffic from a nearby major airport. Despite the constant noise in the general area, the hummingbirds will sometimes react visibly to loud sounds, such as trucks, motorcycles, or airplanes. You can see that type of reaction in this video when the train horn sounds.
The last two hummingbirds are immature Anna’s Hummingbirds. You can see that the last one has some of his red iridescent gorget feathers. The start of red on the last male’s crown is visible when he tilts his head.