needle in a haystack

I have seen a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird working the area around the pond often enough so that Lorna thought I should look for a nest. Fat chance, thought I. The odds of finding a humingbird's nest are approximately equal to that of finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Has anyone actually looked for a needle in a haystack? Well the hummer popped up this morning as I made my way down to the pond and I stopped to follow it as it landed just out of sight, hidden on the branch of an oak tree by a spray of leaves. As I moved around to get a better view, it jumped up again and darted away but eventually came shooting back and landed on the same branch at the point where the branch formed a kind of node (or knot) covered with lichen. Mme Colubris was not perched on the branch in the usual hummingbird fashion but was sitting just on the other side of the branch with only her head and tail sticking out. Could this be anything else but a hummingbird sitting on her nest?!

A hummingbird nest! It would be a first one for the property. And it would have been completely unoticeable (and unfindable) if I hadn't seen the mama bird actually land there and settle in, apparently to incubate or to brood. The warm weather (even at that early hour, it was obviously going to be a scorcher) was probably perfect for the bird. Since only the females build the nests, incubate the eggs and raise he nestlings, the advent of warm weather gives her a chance to go off and feed without fear that the eggs will get cold.

Trochilus colubris was not the only bird observed in its reproductive life cycle. At least two Baltimore Oriole males were circling the place with fledglings in tow -- one with a single, the other with two or three. The young birds have a very distinctive rhythmic call which signifies something like "here I am" or  "feed me" or, perhaps, "show me where I can get dinner".

There are three young Phoebes that regularly freqent the meadow in front of the house, becoming quite adept at catching insects both in the trees and on the open ground. In the meanwhile, the adult male gives his simple song -- a buzzy two-note fee-bee with variations -- a distance away in the woods and gardens on either side of Weesuck Avenue (if the young are on their own, perhaps the elders can start a second brood).

Three Yellowthroats: No. 1, at the bend of the marsh, with a juicy fat worm in its beak; No. 2 singing away in the upper marsh; and No. 3 on the other side of the property (near the pond and not far from the hummingbird).

Eric Salzman