I’m a wreck. First, the two tiny jelly-bean eggs hatched; much celebration in the kingdom!!!
newly hatched
We could see the itty-bitty bodies pulsing with their itty-bitty heartbeats. Now it wasn’t just my husband that was ensnared in this natural drama unfolding right outside our bedroom. Every hour or so I’d go into our closet, climb up on the wooden box and peer out the window right into the nest. How cool when we could finally see a bit of fluff and two teeny beaks barely showing above the lip of the spider webbed nest.
You know it’s a marvel when you’re willing to drag everyone who visits into your closet to witness; I mean, look at your closet, is it ready for guests? My point exactly.
But then this whole miracle-of-birth thing became strangely stressful and an awful lot like parenting. We’ve spent the past two days watching for “mom.” The first day of our vigil she was out all day – carousing no doubt – but returned that night to sit on the nest. Good thing too, because the weather has turned. Our string of 80 days is G-O-N-E, gone! The wind is howling and it’s 20 degrees cooler. More like the typical July weather we’re familiar with; a relief for us delicate Pacific Northwesterners but I’m guessing not so much if you’re 1″ long and barely covered with down!
The second day there was no sign of the mother at all. I know the babies need a mixture of nectar and bugs for calories and protein. Bugs I can get, no problem; I’m still working on nectar, although I figure in a pinch I could use sugar water. The thought of those baby hummingbirds starving outside my bedroom window was driving me crazy. At times we could even see their wee thread-like tongues waving in the air. My god, it was like a sick Disney movie…”Maw—-therrrr” Argh
OK, full disclosure: I am a much loved member of a wonderful family but I have “issues”. It was killing me that these two baby birds might possibly be abandoned! I know, I know “Nature red in tooth and claw”. I began to hope that “mom” was simply eaten by crows; in my twisted mind a much better scenario than the fact that she might have taken off.
Hey, predation happens! Just ask one poor sucker of a hamster who briefly lived in our household. This hummingbird situation was becoming as tragic an incident as that fateful day…only without all the hamster guts spread around the kitchen. And this time I was the emotional casualty instead of my son. The ill-fated hamster was his. Have you ever tried to comfort a screaming child and distract them from blood smears at the same time as your spouse plays CSI and tries to remove all evidence of the crime…all while your cat calmly grooms itself and purrs contentedly?~!
Now I’m way off topic, but this has been upsetting.
Then last night the sane member of this marriage mentioned the obvious fact that the puny birds were ever-so-slightly less minute (how many ways can you say “tiny”?) They now are a full head above the edge of the nest and their “poofy-ness” is obviously increasing. Meaning: they’re growing, maybe even thriving. Maybe… maybe Mom doesn’t fit on the nest anymore and is spending her days hunting and gathering for her young, slaving away, the typical working mother, exhausted and unappreciated.
I really don’t know.
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