Antsy

The elder hummingbird nestling is getting restless, buzzing those wings:

Hello world!

A flurry of feathers

Flapping one's wings at 50 beats per second is tiring work

Siblings 2

Feb. 27, younger baby

Feb 27, older baby

Feb. 28, the two of them

Siblings

With much patience I finally got a photo of these two both peeking out:

Note how the lower one has somewhat sparser feathers and a shorter beak with a more prominent gape. It is probably a day or so younger than its sibling.

Flight feathers

The baby hummingbirds have suddenly become very antsy, starting to squirm and flutter their tiny quilly wings:

Hummingbaby

More pictures from the tiny nest-- they grow up so fast:

Feb 22, tiny tongue sticking out

Feb 23, peekaboo!

Beaks 2

More day-by-day photos of the baby hummingbirds and their caring mother:

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

Feb. 20, a tiny beak

Feb. 21. Note the feather quills sprouting on the babies' chins!

Beaks

For the past week I have been seeing the mother hummingbird perched on the edge of her nest-- making poking motions as if feeding young:

Then a couple of days ago I caught a glimpse of tiny baby beaks-- and just now, I managed to photograph them!

Splashy

My family has a sort of water park for birds in our backyard, and this morning it's had a few visitors:

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Shake those feathers!

Rinse and repeat

Orange-crowned Warbler wants a bath too!

Plumes

Close-up of a Great Egret's display feathers:

Preening

White-Faced Ibis smoothing out its jewel-toned feathers.

Naptime

Starlings

These birds have some odd relevances to my academic life. First, their presence in America has been attributed to an obsessive Shakespeare fan, though the Shakespeare connection may be nothing but a legend. Second, they may be capable of recognizing recursion in sound sequences, an ability generally considered unique to humans and essential to language.