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.
Back to Nesting Hummingbirds or home page.
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.
Back to Nesting Hummingbirds or home page.
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.
Go here to see other Nest Posts or here to return to the home page.
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.
Back to Nesting Hummingbirds or home page.
This selection of hummingbird nest pictures show an Anna’s Hummingbird nest over time. The series begins after we discovered the nest and before the first set of chicks were visible. The series ends with the empty nest after the second set of hummingbird babies fledged.
Click on (or touch) each small photo for a full size picture. Use your back button to return to this page.
The first pictures show the hummingbird nest when it was new. You may notice that it is fairly round compared to the later photos. The nest is in very thin branches of a Texas Ebony tree, about 5 feet off the ground. It is well camouflaged with very small leaves from surrounding plants on its outer surface. It is hard to see in the dappled shade of the tree and plants near the house. The seed pods of the Texas Ebony scattered throughout the tree are about the size of the adult female and add to the overall camouflage of her chosen location.
The nest still has a cupped shape with the second set of eggs in it, as you can see in the photo with the reflection of the eggs. We did not attempt to get pictures of the chicks from above the nest.
The empty, used nest has small feathers left. You can see that the nest has been stretched out and flattened. There are no remnants of hummingbird egg shells. The black bits on the edge of the nest are the chicks’ droppings. There are no droppings on the inside though the outer edge is ringed with droppings.
The last photos in the “hummingbird nest pictures” series show the nest after the two sets of two hummingbird chicks have left and some weeks have passed. The ruler shows just how tiny it is: less than 2 inches across. The nest’s interior is even smaller, closer to 1.5 inches.
The nest is still there, slowly filling with leaves.
(Update March 2013. A female Anna’s has renovated the nest and is sitting on two eggs.)
Back to Nesting Hummingbirds or home page.