A Hummingbirds Nest

A Good Man and I were having our coffee on the deck yesterday morning, basking in the warm spring sun and feeling very excited for the day ahead. ‘LOOK!’ whispered A Good Man, pointing to our ‘wool tree‘. There, hovering in the air was a magnificent hummingbird. He was dressed in his shimmering green suite and his red cravat and he was looking intently at the colorful wool roving on the tree. I could see him thinking, ‘Oh, this will be perfect! She’ll love me for this… I’m getting lucky tonight! Whoooo hoo!’. He grasped a tuft of wool in his tiny beak and pulled. Alas, he wasn’t strong enough to get it off. He moved onto the next tuft, same thing… I could see him getting worried. On the third try, the lovely soft wool separated from the branch and off Mr Hummingbird buzzed, very happy with himself and his find. A Good Man and I felt just delighted that our ‘wool tree’ was really working. What a gorgeous nest our hummingbird was going to have… how lucky his chicks would be, nestled warmly in our colorful roving.

What do you think K’s teacher brought into school this morning? A REAL hummingbird’s nest, for the children to see. It was too sweet… tiny! As K put it… ‘as small as a mini cupcake.’ She used this description as when we wet felted our own nest, you can see it here, we didn’t expect it to shrink… and shrink… and shrink until it was small enough to fit into a cupcake holder. It became so small, we dubbed it our ‘hummingbird’s nest’. As it turns out, our ‘hummingbird’s nest’ is about double the size of the real deal. As you will see, the real hummingbird’s nest was made of small sticks and twigs, a few feathers AND… colorful wool! Here it is, click on the photos to make them larger so that you can see the materials in the nest.

Seeing the colorful yarn in this nest did get me to wondering if someone else around here also has a ‘wool tree’? I would very much like to meet them.

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7 Responses

  1. The nest is sooooo pretty. I clicked on the photos, and I’m amazed at all the teeny tiny bits of stuff in the nest. So many different things used to build it!

  2. What a great story about your little wool thief. We have hummers visit our flowers and feeders every summer, but I have never even thought of this. I’m going to have make a wool tree now! I would love to see that.

  3. I’ve never seen a hummingbirds nest before. Thank you for the photos…I loved seeing them. I remember how excited I was the first time I saw a hummingbird in the wild…it was just last spring! How fun to know that your gift of wool to the birds is appreciated. :)

  4. Just perfect that you and your husband actually got to see the hummingbird pluck away a bit of your wool. Warms the heart that when you imagine your wool keeping some baby birds warm and snug. It’s wonderful when these things we try actually work!! Lovely little hummingbird nest too.

  5. That is so cute!
    How big/small is the nest?
    I’m asumming its only a couple cms.

    Your so lucky to have a Hummingbird in your garden. We don’t get humming birds in Australia…Are they a shy bird?
    It must of been so exciting when the Hummingbird was taking the wool..:)

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