[Click to enlarge]
[Click to enlarge] and, yes, that's a housefly in the foreground.
Just two shots from a massive photo essay on this miracle on a small branch of a small tree next to the parking lot of a golf course in Colorado. Full show RIGHT HERE. Take your time. It's a big (BIG) page and the photos are high-res, but it's worth it. [Thanks to Rodger the Real King of France]
Posted by Vanderleun at April 7, 2011 5:01 PM
You've outdone yourself, Gerard. Today and yesterday's AD has had the most delightful, thoughtful, beautiful and serendipitous stories and photographs.
Posted by: Jewel at April 7, 2011 5:30 PMI've meant to thank you so many times and haven't. Wish I had but it would get tiresome after a while. But I gotta thank ya for this one. My wife and I are amateur birders (definitely not Audubon Society types). Just call me Birdman, Attorney at Law...; )
Posted by: WKimbell at April 7, 2011 7:06 PMI agree Jewel. Will be hard to top these photographs. Amazing how well-disguised the nest was even with the newly hatched chicks in it and especially in such a vulnerable location of a low branch. Thorough series! Thanks very much for sharing this!
Posted by: RedCarolina at April 7, 2011 8:16 PMWhen we first moved to our home in Antelope Valley (western Mojave), I was a little bummed we might not enjoy as many hummers as we did at our home in Paradise CA. My wife, ever practical, just said, "let's put out the feeders." Of course within a couple days, several hummers were hitting them regularly. A couple years ago we spotted where hummers were returning in cypress trees out back, and found their nest, just at eye level. We watched with awe as eggs were laid and warmed, then hatched and little ones fed. Unfortunately, that brood came early that year, and hummers laid another clutch of eggs in heat of summer, only to lose them to marauding ants. I think those original young ones still come to our feeders though.
Posted by: stephen at April 7, 2011 8:27 PMAh, Paradise, my boyhood home.
Posted by: vanderleun at April 7, 2011 9:36 PMThat is no housefly, that is a 17 year cicada. Houseflies that big would carry off your sandwich.
Posted by: gilbert martin at April 8, 2011 6:35 AM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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