Nesting Anna's Hummingbird

It is that most beautiful time of year again - spring in the Great Central Valley!  All around, grasses are greening up, wildflowers are beginning to show their faces and our local avifauna are getting restless.  For some birds, the time to depart and return to their northern breeding grounds is drawing near.  For others, our resident birds, the breeding season has already begun. 

I've written before about our little gem of a resident, Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna), defying the odds to remain in Northern California throughout the winter.  And I've also written about the beauty, intricacy and strength of hummingbird nests.  Today, I have the good fortune of being able to combine the two in a couple of special photos I took yesterday of a female Anna's Hummingbird on her nest.


The nests of Anna's Hummingbirds are extremely difficult to spot.  Though they build their nests fairly low on horizontal limbs of trees and shrubs, they take great care to camouflage the outside of the nests so that at a glance they appear to be nothing more than a knot on a branch.  Even when you know where to look they can be tricky to find! 

Anna's Hummingbirds are less than 4 inches long and weigh only a few grams when fully grown.  The female takes about a week to construct her cup-shaped nest, sitting on it and using her small body to shape the nest as she builds it up around herself.  She uses soft down from plants such as cattail, willow and thistle, bound together by spider webs.  When finished the cup measures about 1 inch tall by 1.5 inches in diameter.  The outside is covered with bits of lichen, bark and mosses to further hide it from predators. 


The female herself, lacking the flashy gem-like coloring of the male, is barely noticeable as she sits quietly on her nest throughout the average 16-day incubation period (which can range from 14 to 19 days).  Each nest typically contains two impossibly small, white jelly bean-sized eggs.  When the young hatch, they are tiny, naked, blind and helpless.  To see them, you would be sure there is no way they could possibly survive.  But survive they do!  Young hummingbirds remain in the nest for about 3 weeks while the female alone cares for them until they are ready to fledge (leave the nest).  If she is lucky, a female Anna's Hummingbird may raise two or three broods each breeding season, with as many different males.

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