NEEDING NURTURE: Encouraged by our early spring, an Anna’s hummingbird laid her first clutch of eggs in mid-January.
Three weeks later, when the temperature had fallen, a homeowner noticed a hummingbird at the feeder sitting on top of something. Going out to investigate, she discovered the “something” was another tiny hummingbird.
The mother had been sitting on it, prodding its sides to encourage it to open its beak and drink the syrup. But this baby bird was too cold.
The woman brought it inside her home, trying to warm it by holding it in her her cupped hands.
Once at Powell River Orphaned Wildlife Society, recovering from severe hypothermia and becoming alert, it was fed a highly nutritious formula of nectar from Germany.
Only three weeks old, the tiny bird needed five pushes of its tiny beak into the syringe to teach it to eat, as well as more prodding on its sides to stimulate the gaping reflex.
Alert and buzzing around a cage, she gained weight and strength, and began eating well.
Females mate with more than one male, having three clutches per season. They lay two to three eggs per clutch. Each egg is less than one centimetre long.
