Anna's nest

A nest of a Calypte anna - Anna's Hummingbird Colibri d'Anna (French), Colibrí coronirrojo (Spanish). She decorated it with lichen and built it on a scrub oak (Querqus berberidifolia) that was burned in the 2007 Witch Creek fire that burned thousands of homes. The scrub oak has a huge burl that it resprouts from after fire. This one wasn't burned at a very hot temp so you can see it resprouting underneath her nest. This is away from houses and gardens, her main nectar plants seemed to be Mimulus aurantiacus and Lonicera interrupta Keckiella cordifolia and Penstemon spectabilis.






I tried my best not to disturb the mother hummer when i took these, i used my camera zoom and took the pictures quickly then left. The nest is about at eye-level on this burned scrub oak. The male Anna's get all the attention, so here is a female in her well crafted and decorated nest.




To me the chick looks more than a few days old but the other egg hasn't hatched yet. Do you think the other egg is a "dud" or they hatch staggered more than a couple days?




And here is a skull of one I found on the ground a few years ago. so delicate...