Raising Baby Hummingbirds

Female Hummingbirds are some of the most capable single moms in nature. Usually she will not accept the amorous attention of any male until she builds her nest by herself. The males role in the rearing of the young is limited to fertilization. After that occurs, she alone lays and incubates the eggs and cares for the fledglings. While we might be inclined to think poorly of the male for this seemingly neglectful behavior, think of the danger of having a blinking iridescent male leading the way to the vulnerable nest. Nature knows best.

Before any male courts successfully, the female hummer gathers an enormous amount of stronger-than-steel-wire spider's silk. With the strong thread, she binds soft seed down, furry leaf hairs, fern fronds, fine fibrous roots, wool, feathers, and any similar material she finds to form the body and the soft lining of the nest. Spider's silk also fastens the nest to support the substrate. To help the nest blend perfectly into its surroundings, she decorates the outside of the nest with lichens, mosses, bark fragments, etc. Once the nest was built and ready to hold her precious eggs, the female is receptive to the males glittering display flights. She may even seek out a male and dance in front of him to initiate mating.

Hummer nests are remarkably similar in composition, but remarkably different in placement. Some saddle horizontal branches. Others are suspended from above. Some are partially suspended in the fork of a tree. Some hang precariously over streams. Others regurgitate a sticky glue to attach the nest to a nearly vertical cliff face. Some females are natural engineers and make use of small stones or mud clods on one side of the nest to counterbalance it. Others build up one side of the nest more than the other for the same counter weighted effect. The Andean hillstar that nests in high cold Andes builds a thick and large nest for greater insulating value. She locates the nest in cave or deep ravine, often unusually close to others of her species, for more protection from the harsh climate.

Nests have been erected in one or two days. More often it takes from one to two weeks to build a nest. Sometimes the one or two tiny pure white eggs are laid about two days apart before the nest is completed. Then nest building takes place simultaneously with incubation.

Females are fierce defenders of their nests. They attack marauding hawks, man, snakes, or any animal that ventures too near. Males don't defend nests, but are equally adept when defending feeding and mating territories, which in a few cases they share with there mates. There are some rare reports of males incubating eggs and helping to feed the young. Ruby-throats and Rufous hummingbirds, the most northerly of nesting hummers whose cold climate offers the least resources, have been observed incubating eggs. There is a single report of an Anna's male feeding young.

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