It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg.
We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. — C.S. Lewis
Walela’s hatchlings are 15 and 17 days old now. *sniff* Time flies, and wow, haven’t they grown?
When they’re not snuggled side-by-side in the nest, waiting for Walela to bring them another meal, they’re flapping their wings and wriggling precipitously on its edge.
This video footage shows them for the survivors they are. It ends on a really sweet note, but given all their daredevil aerobatics, it’s not for the faint-of-heart.
They’ll fledge within a week, so while these flight simulations seem scary to us as bystanders, they are critical to the hummingbird babies’ ultimate survival.
Here’s a shorter, tamer video, for the good eggs among us who might’ve watched only a portion of the first video through splayed fingers. So funny, the way they poke Walela’s chest with their growing beaks, as if to say, “Mom, Mom, is it lunch time yet? Mom?” And see how she preens their pinfeathers at the end?
such a lovely thing to see, experience and photograph too.
we had some in a tree at eye level a couple of years ago, it was a dream come true to witness. So clever how they use spider webs so that the nest stretches as the babes grow!
Finding my voice, and taking wing | A Joyful Noise
[…] last we visited their nest together, the siblings were doing flight simulations. Four days later, on February 19th, I witnessed something rare and […]