I eased behind the huge mass of nesting material and took a firm
hold of several strands, I then pulled back, quickly, to pull them
free. The jarring concussion, which followed, took me by suprise.
I tried to get my bearings as the ground rushed up to meet me and
recovered about two feet from the ground. After that near miss I
climbed back to the altitude I had been at and started searching
for my tormentor. I realized that I had grabbed hold of a human's
hair and that he had not been happy about it. He was rubbing his
head and throwing immense volumes of noise at me. Hummingbirds make
mistakes just like everyone else and more than most when trying to
build and protect a nest.
I decided that I should look elsewhere and settled on a lovely
little spider web. I dove toward it, feeling the thrum of my wings
and hearing the whoosh of the wind flowing past.
Calliope Hummingbird / Stellula calliope - female ...
English: A blue jay nest, in the top of a little p...
Bird Nesting sites around gardenThe web glowed
gold in the morning sunlight and dew drops hanging from it shone
like liquid fire. A gnat flew too close and I captured it with a
snap of my long tongue. Snaring a long piece of the silk, I
immediately ascended, looking for my tree. My mate was awaiting my
return, and was soon rewarded as I pulled up to the carefully
camouflaged nest. I passed the silken strand over to her and left
to find some food.
The humans are very good to us and hang tremendous reservoirs of
nectar from various limbs and rafters. The containers come in all
shapes and colors but they all have red bases. I headed for one of
these and saw one of my rival males. He instantly attacked,
chirping his anger at my...