My Hummingbird Neighbors IV - Welcome Back

The weather was unusual this year, the temperature jumped up and down, one week like winter with heater on, the next week felt like summer. We didn't even feel the spring!


I had been wondering for a while if the hummingbird mother was coming back to the same nest or nearby to build a new nest to raise baby birds again. It was still too cold for them after April, then I gave up on the idea.


Our neighbor has very large potato tree (Solanum erianthum) which blooms with blue flowers all year round. I had noticed that there was a hummingbird hanging on a dead brunch there cleaning its feathers above our fence. I checked the leftover nest from last year, I thought even if the hummingbird comes back, it might not use the same old one...

It was perfect weather during the Mother's day weekend. Sunday morning, I saw a hummingbird fly by outside our window. Immediately, I spotted that she was feeding babies at exactly the same nest, but newly rebuilt, and more solid than the last one.

I was so happy, opened the window, and broke a couple of branches of the tree so I could able to see the baby birds when the mother was not around. I only could see some tiny black hairy body at the bottom of the nest - half walnut shell size, I had no idea if there was only one or more babies. Leave them alone and let them grow...





On May 20th, only one week after I found them, I already could see the baby hummingbirds' heads and beaks, there were two of them. I started taking photos, and wondered if the mother was the same hummingbird here from last year...?
( to be continued...)




Related stories at:
My Hummingbird Neighbors I - An Abandoned Nesthttp://originalartstories.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-hummingbird-neighbor-i-abandoned.html

My Hummingbird Neighbors II - Watching the babies growhttp://originalartstories.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-hummingbird-neighbors-ii-watching.html

My Hummingbird Neighbors III - An Awarded Single Motherhttp://originalartstories.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-hummingbird-neighbors-iii-awarded.html

Or visiting my Photography Gallery - Animals And People Art at:
http://xueling-zou.artistwebsites.com/art/all/photography+-+animals+and+people/all

Storytelling artist Xueling Zou who works in ♦️ watercolor & ♦️ oil mediums on ♦️ original art Plein Air paintings. Ship worldwide since 2010 @ https://about.me/xuelingzou@ about.me/xuelingzou or http://xueling-zou.pixels.com

Original Art Story

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Chinese Moon Festival II - A Classical Poem and Homesick 中秋节思乡

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Dream in the Night — Interpreted by Xu YuanChong Abed, I see a silvery light, I wonder if it's frost aground. Looking up, I find the moon bright; Bowing, in homesickness I'm drowned. 静夜思 — 李白 床前明月光， 疑是地上霜。 举头望明月， 低头思故乡。 (Please click the image to enlarge) This poem written by Li Bai (701 – 762) who was a major Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period  - China's "golden age" of classical Chinese poetry (  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai ). It was one of the first classical poems I was taught before my primary school. Of course, I would not know the meaning at that young age. The older I get and the farther I live from home, the deeper I feel this poem, which is more often appearing in my head. Hiding my tears used to be part my character. But now, I can no longer control it behind my eyes whenever I think of it... Another Mid-Autumn Festival is coming again, which is a popular lunar harvest festival celebrated by Chinese...
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Short-pose live male model drawings

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