THE HOUSE HUNTERS - Mrs. Hummingbird and Family

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm




THE HOUSE HUNTERS - Mrs. Hummingbird and Family

The house hunters have finally found their perfect cottage to dwell! The acquisition is final. This might be my last blog for this season! Starting next week, we will be packing and moving! I hope to get back to reading and writing as soon as possible.

The process however has revealed how fussy we humans are when it comes to choosing the ideal residential abode - Does the house have a shower on every level? Is it too close to that 60 ft Douglas Fir? Does it have windows directly facing the neighbors? What about the neighbors themselves? Are they the type that will tolerate occasional whirring noises from my Dosai grinder and my Chutney blender… in unison? All right, cacophony! How about the stove? Is it the wonderful gas stove that I crave? Or is it that fancy shiny flat glass-top hot plate which comes with a computerized brain of its own...you know, the type that turns off before my Upma water reaches boiling point! That’s a topic for another blog by itself!!

All the nail-biting heebie-jeebies made me wonder if other species are just as fastidious as humans are in their home-searching ventures. Why should they? They do not have to pay a worn out wood chip for their real estate! The human race, on the other hand, is required to ‘purchase’ its place of dwelling, since homesteading is outdated! All other animals simply crash into any available space or cranny to call it their own. Birds build their own bristly pads for free, while certain carnivorous mammals just snarl their way into the domains of those that are less intimidating. I have not heard of a lioness nagging her male counterpart about the ceiling height of their newly acquired cave being less than 9 ft. I guess oppressors cannot be choosers.Birds, however, get finicky before zeroing in on the perfect location. They are also very meticulous with their choice of building materials. If they miscalculate, chances are that their family would end up becoming mincemeat for a variety of cunning stalkers.

Let me tell you the story of a young hummingbird mother who, a few years ago, decided to build her little nest on my jasmine creeper. This was in our very first home in California. I had fallen in love with that house because of the jasmine creeper, which was in full bloom when we walked in for the first time. It was smack in front of the entrance and was so inviting that I did not bother scrutinizing the home for any of its follies. That house turned out to be very good for my family. Little did I know that, years later, another bird-brained female would also fall for that same jasmine plant!

Hummingbirds are native to the Americas. They are among the smallest of birds, the smallest being the Bee Hummingbirds. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12-90 times per second (depending on the species). They can also fly backwards, and are the only group of birds able to do so. Their English name derives from the characteristic hum made by their rapid wing beats. They can fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h; 34 mph). (Source Wikipedia)

It was around 8:30 AM one morning when I was leaving for work. I stepped out of my house and walked straight into a neat little semi-sphere which hit me right on my nose. In her enthusiasm to build her nest, Mrs. Bird forgot that her locale was just 5 feet from the ground! It was right in front of our main door and clearly visible to any passing non-vegetarian predator! She was lucky that the first one to spot her clandestinely built nest was this vegetarian non-predator! I am all of 5 ft 3 inches tall. A little subtraction proves that my nose is 3 inches below the top of my head, or thereabouts (just thought you might want to know). It also proves how dimwitted that mother-to-be birdie was! No one in my family had observed the actual nest construction in progress. It seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. Over the next few days, we observed the female hummingbird hauling in a treasure-trove of strings, strands, and hair from blonde-haired women and brunettes. Her husband or boyfriend, assuming we do not know much about the matrimonial practices of hummingbirds, was not much help in the nest-building process. He probably was not smarter than her either because he never raised any objection about her choice for their family's perch. 

My family however was mesmerized by the tiny mother's indomitable spirit and determination to create a fine settlement for her babies. A week later, they arrived, the eggs i.e.! It wasn't too hard to tell; all we had to do was walk out of our door, and there they were - two tiny eggs neatly stacked inside the tight fibrous nursery.

Hummingbirds are new to some of us from India. I managed to take several pictures and videos of their activities. I have posted a few photos below. The videos sadly are buried in my boxes somewhere.

The sight of the eggs in plain view converted me into an overprotective mama bird too! As soon as I heard someone or something approaching our home, I was on guard. I successfully shooed off anyone who showed the slightest interest in the new family's business, which turned out to be my son, most of the time! The proud parents did not seem to mind our daily human activities around their nest, but my cat Poppy's mere appearance sent them into a vibrating frenzy! Their wings used to create quite a windstorm when agitated. They made peculiar pecking noises with their slender long beaks and managed to intimidate Poppy, who had not bothered to hone his skills as a hunter-gatherer. He was not exactly craving avian meat either. Besides, the tiny birds would not have been a mouthful anyway. They were not worthy of a salmon eater's attention.

Below on another birthing event, Poppy can be seen testing a couple of sparrow parents who ended up scaring him successfully with their puffed up chests and loud chirps! Our cat can be seen in the bushes being held back with a blue leash by who else but me!

The other cats in our neighborhood were unable to reach the nest because the jasmine creeper was not sturdy enough for a catwalk. I was happy that the dangling creeper provided some form of protection. A few days later, the two baby hummingbirds hatched out of their shells. Their oily bodies glistened in the bright sunshine and increased the stress levels of all the caregivers, including myself. I commanded all members of my family, the remaining two i.e. - Mr. Microprocessor and Nano (my husband and son, for first time visitors to my blog), to take a longer trip around the house using our backdoor for commuting purposes. They obliged. I set a guard-stool by the nearest window and kept watch during the day, whenever I was home. The male hummingbird was lackadaisical about all the commotion around his nest. But the mother made numerous trips to all the local flowering plants to gather nectar. Her tiny wings fluttered thousands of times per day, making frequent trips to feed her young ones. She even brought home tiny insects. The entire feeding experience was amazing to watch. Nano decided to name the babies Rikki and Tikki. Their mother seemed to approve. The dad was nonchalant.

One day I noticed a flock of Blue Jays in our area. Blue Jays are very aggressive birds that measure 9 to 12 inches in length. They are extremely noisy and fast like fighter aircrafts. Just their presence during the week had frightened many smaller birds away. I began cursing our stupid hummingbird mother's choice of real estate. She was obviously a first-time mother. I was a first time mother too when I decided to make my hearth where the jasmine blossomed. In my case, Mr. MP had used all of his processors to make a wise choice before finalizing the purchase. 

In an attempt to protect, I decided to camouflage the vulnerable nest myself with a few twigs and leaves. It seemed to work. Our little hummingbird family managed to escape the blue jays' menace. My constant vigil near the window may have helped. By now, the babies were able to sit upright for their feeding sessions. 

It was a weekend. We humans have a life too - shopping, leaving for work, chauffeuring our own little one back and forth from school etc. It was becoming impossible to protect the babies from the elements. We had gone out shopping for an hour or so. When we returned, something was amiss on our driveway. I was shocked to find the neat little nest lying tattered on the ground along with a few branches. Rikki and Tikki were gone! Their parents were missing in action! It was heart wrenching when we realized that the brash blue jays had snacked on our hummingbird family leaving nothing to recover, not even the nest for a momento! We hoped that the parents had escaped, but we could not confirm since they never returned. 

Nano constructed two crosses in memory of the two baby birds and stuck them under the jasmine creeper. Sadly, our offspring had used plain printer paper to build the crosses. They did not even last through the next morning's dew!

If the mother hummingbird had survived, I am sure she would have learned from the experience. Firstly, she would have ditched her useless spouse (or cohort). Assuming that not all males are that incompetent, she would have paired up with a humdinger of a hummingbird who would have given his bird-brained advice before she began her shoddy substandard construction. 

Did we learn a lesson from all this?

Yes, two brains, however tiny, are better than one!