Growing Babies

After the delight of finding the baby hummingbirds, our whole family became quite protective of them. We had a bit of drama on Friday, though.

A neighbor came to borrow something, and while we stood talking with the door opened, the hummingbird got in the house. She kept zooming around the high ceilings, trying to find her way back out. We tried our best to help her - noticing she kept flying toward areas of reflected light, we turned out most of the lights in the house except those in the foyer by the front door. No luck. Then she headed upstairs. We closed all of the doors off the hallway up there, but still couldn't get her to head back toward the door. Finally, I held up a goalie lacrosse net. She sat on it, and as hummers usually do when they think they are caught, she played dead. I took the net downstairs and outside, set in on the ledge near the front door, and off she went.

All's well and good, right? Well, it got pretty cold that night, and every time I looked out there, no mom on the nest. I was really worried about those babies, almost to the point of despair. (It seems silly in retrospect.) I went to an all-day HeartMath class on Saturday, and while I was gone, my son Matthew called Hummingbird Rescue to ask for their advice. They actually told him to touch the babies to be sure they were alive and warm (they were.) I never knew you could touch them - some species of birds will abandon babies that have been touched my humans, but apparently not hummingbirds. They said as the babies get bigger, the mom is gone more and more away from the nest, getting food. We were worried that she might have freaked out about her indoor excursion and abandoned the nest, but nope, she didn't. My husband Eldy bought another hummingbird feeder to hang by the front of the house. Our regular one is in the backyard.

Here's evidence that the babies are growing. The two of them about fill the nest now!