Hummingbird Nest Update

Hummingbird Nest Update

The hummingbirds hatched out of the eggs a couple of days ago; but I hadn't managed to get a photo of the babies. The nest is located so that it is always in the shade, smart momma; but it makes it difficult to get a photo of the babies. This morning Roy helped me out by holding a couple of the branches so that we could get some sunlight into the nest. This helped a bit and I did get one photo where you can actually see one baby a bit. It is not a good photo; but was all I could manage.

I read online that the females lay two eggs and this one did. I also read that the babies stay in the nest for 21 days before fledging, we are not exactly sure what day they hatched; but they have about 2 more weeks before flying away. They have almost doubled in size since the first time we saw them about 5 days ago. If you view the photo full size by clicking on it, you will see one of the babies, the other is to the right of the first one. Their beaks are short and broad and look nothing like the adults beaks, maybe it is easier for momma to feed them if their beaks are short for awhile.

Yesterday the young fellow from next door came over and gave us an invitation to his mothers 55th birthday party. It was already 4 PM and the party was to begin at 7 PM. I am not sure why he was delivering the invitations so late; but he had a whole handful of them to deliver. I rushed uptown to get a gift.

We waited until just after 8 PM before going to the party. When we arrived there were some people there; but we didn't know anyone. We greeted the young man who had invited us and were introduced to the "birthday lady". We had never met her before; but we see her son daily. We sat down, nibbled on the snacks provided and checked out the decorations. People kept arriving until the patio was almost full. There was one little boy, who could just barely walk, who was playing with a soccer ball. He adopted us and we rolled the ball back and forth with him for awhile. He was so funny, he could hardly walk; but was determined to play soccer. Irene, our landlady arrived and came and sat beside us. Some of the other neighbors also arrived, and we greeted them. Irene leaned over and told me that the young fellow had hired a Mariachi band to come and play. She told me the name of the band and apparently they are well thought of, as she seemed impressed. A few minutes later, the 6 piece Mariachi band arrived. The violin player was a lady. They were dressed in the black outfits with the silver ornaments down the pant legs, they looked very nice and sounded great. When they first walked in the birthday lady was so surprised to see them and excited. Her son just beamed, obviously he knew what to do to please momma. The young fellow has a very nice voice, he is always singing, and he sang several songs to his mother accompanied by the mariachis. It was nice to watch the love and emotion between mother and son. They played for about 1/2 hr. and took requests from the birthday lady. Very nice.

Right after the band left they began to serve dinner. Irene quite proudly told us that Nancy, (her daughter in law) had cooked all the food for the party. Nancy is becoming quite an entrepreneur. We were served a plate with a yummy roast pork, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, refried beans, and a slice of french bread. It was delicious. We stayed for awhile longer; but there were so many people standing and trying to eat their food that we decided that we would leave and give someone else our seats. We made our way into the kitchen to say our thank yous and goodbyes to the birthday lady. Nancy was still in the kitchen supervising and she wanted us to stay for cake and quite proudly showed us her concoction, it did look good. A lovely evening.