Here she is.....nest all finished and ready to lay her eggs.
All during this last week, our little hummingbird mama has been soooo busy building her nest. It has grown quite substantially (see my earlier blog as she began building her nest). For the first several days we had consistent rain but that didn’t stop her as she flew in and out with soft bits of tree bark and glued her nest together with spider webs.
Note she has some fluff in her beak to line the nest with some softness.
Clever little bird, she camouflaged her nest well and built it into a cactus branch. This is another of Mike's super photos...look at the colours on the tail feathers!!
A closer look at those spectacular colours on her tailfeathers
Two days ago when I took a look inside the nest, the Bahama Woodstar hummingbird had laid a tiny egg. Apparently it will take 16 to 18 days to incubate but I’m thinking she will be laying another egg soon. So far though, there’s only the one.
One little egg in the nest ..... will she lay another?
She spends lots of time sitting on the egg in her nest. We walk past here so many times during the day so she must be getting used to the traffic.
Hummingbirds build an amazing, well constructed nest that is a bit more than an inch or so in diameter and probably two inches high so that the eggs are secure. It is round, open, and made of soft woolly material similar to cotton, camouflaged on the outside with tiny pieces of bark . We have some wild cotton here at Harbour Club so she has probably found some of that to line her nest with. They may choose a variety of sites from two feet to twelve feet from the ground. Two rather elongated white eggs are generally laid so we are now waiting for the second egg to appear.
You can see a closer view of the egg in the hummingbird's nest
- Nesting hummingbird hidden in the cactus tree close by our walkway to our house at Harbour Club Villas
Much excitement with watching and photographing this little hummingbird! Watch for more as hopefully the babies will hatch in a few weeks. I’m also watching a Gray Kingbird nest which today has four eggs in it. When I first saw it, there were just two but these birds lay up to five eggs….so we’ll see. But this will be for another post.
