Hummingbird Mother Feeding Her Two Babies

by Xueling Zou

Title

Hummingbird Mother Feeding Her Two Babies

Artist

Xueling Zou

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

Thank you for viewing my original photography. © Xueling Zou -

(More photos at: http://originalartstories.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-hummingbird-neighbors-ii-watching.html )

We moved into our new house in August of 2008. These two plum trees grew so fast I had to ask the gardener to trim them twice a year. I didn't ask for trimming the trees because of the hummingbird this spring, They grew a little wild, and the branches started to reach our house, they made some scraping noises on windy days. So, I reminded the gardener to do his duty for us, since our hummingbird never came back to the nest.

Our gardener did a very good job trimming the two trees. These two trees could get most of their sunlight around noon. I still saw a hummingbird came back to the tree area.

During the middle of May, 2012, I was in our garden and saw a hummingbird landed on the second tree (not the tree where I originally spotted the nest). I saw in silhouette what seemed like the mother feeding babies. My heart started pounding, and I ran as fast as I could to our upstairs where one our windows faced the tree. Amazingly, I discovered that there were two big and fat hummingbird babies in a tiny half walnut size nest, which was smaller than the first one. It was just so lucky that the nest was only one foot away from the newly trimmed branch.

Were these two nests related to each other? I did some research and found out that some hummingbird mothers build two nests nearby. How smart they are! I did feel relieved and was happily watching them growing up carefully!

Every day, when the sunlit shone on the babies and nest area through the leaves during the noon, I got busy to capture them. I even broke one branch blocked my sight, but still my zoom was not long enough to get great shots, they were just too tiny and cute:-)! One day, I was trying to put a small branch close to me with my left hand, which connected to the nest, while my right hand holding the camera, and ready to take photos. But, I hear the sound of the hummingbird mother calling her babies, and I thought it was a great opportunity to me to capture the feeding. So I released the little branch I was holding, and hid myself with the sheers by my left hand.

The hummingbird mother immediately found out, and flying in front of my lens for 30 seconds, flew around the tree one more time, then landed. I was holding my breath, took only a few shots, her feeding was only last 15 seconds. Then she left, I thought I could reach out taking more photos. Suddenly, she flew in front of my camera without any calling sound. I realized that I really should leave them alone, let them grow happy and healthy:-).

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June 26th, 2012

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