Middle of the Road Rage

People keep asking about the status of the hummingbird and her chicks that nested in the plum tree in our backyard ("patio" is more accurate), so here's the scoop.

The chicks had gotten really big (as far as hummingbirds go), and the mother had taken to roosting elsewhere at night, leaving them alone in the nest, but we saw her regularly flying to the nest to feed them. We were out of town the weekend before last, and when we returned, there was only one chick left. We'd left our cat indoors, so we can rule out the possibility of the cat having eaten it. I have the slightest bit of hope that the chick had learned to fly, but there's obviously no way to know.

Last Saturday, I noticed that the baby bird had grown to almost the size of the mother, and it seemed more or less fully feathered, so I decided I'd better take a picture before it left the nest for good. I took my camera out to the nest, but when I got close, I heard the angry staccato clicking of the mother hummingbird about 20 feet above me. She dive-bombed me, and I could suddenly hear her ear-splitting clicks and the thunderous beating of her wings right next to my ear. Of course, it freaked me out, and I involuntarily ducked and ran from the tree (similar, yes, to the way a small girl might react). When I looked back, the nest was empty!

The baby bird wasn't on the ground anywhere, and I finally spotted it on top of the wooden fence. It sat there for a few minutes before flying to the flat garage roof where the mother came and fed it several times. We saw the bird stretching and flapping its wings, and flying short distances across the roof, with the mother close by. It seemed to have a little trouble with accuracy. After a few more minutes of "practicing," the baby bird left the roof and began flying over the yard with the mother actually guiding it by gently nudging the baby with her body, until they finally disappeared together over the rooftops.

That's the last we've seen of them. I guess our work here is done, and I'm sure that's more than any of you wanted to know.